


Ma bête noir

by luna65



Series: building The Wall [1]
Category: Pink Floyd
Genre: 1979, AU dark fantasy, Canon Compliant, Drug Use, Lots of Angst, M/M, POV Multiple, Period-Typical Everything, Suicidal Ideation, gratuitous snark, mostly - Freeform, suggestions of violence, typical Floydian personal dysfunction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-14
Updated: 2019-07-14
Packaged: 2020-06-28 00:03:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 22,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19800550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luna65/pseuds/luna65
Summary: Company men tell no tales, even when the tale is at an end.  (AU dark fantasy)





	1. dogged (2008)

**Author's Note:**

> I originally wrote this in 2009, and it wasn't the first of my stories to feature James but I think it was the first where I began writing him well, IMO. Those of you who know me from LJ fandom in those days are aware I wrote him **a lot** and I was the only one who did, in my historically accurate style. And so now I feel it's necessary to share the trilogy of stories I wrote featuring the David/James pairing with a new generation of fans, since there appears to be some interest in him as a character. I would have **never** imagined that would happen, tbh. 
> 
> So this imagines the initial recording of _The Wall_ in the south of France was somehow involved with the legend of La Bête du Gévaudan and owes rather a bit to Caitlin R. Kiernan's _The Red Tree_. I've made a few changes from the original publication.
> 
> To claim it is true is nowadays the convention of every made-up story. Mine, however, is true.  
> \- Jorge Luis Borges, “The Book of Sand”

“Here the vulgar eye will see nothing but Obscurity and will despair considerably.”  
\- John Dee, _Monas Hierogylphica_

A letter arrived, not long after the fall had come to stay. The chill gathering in the hollows of the woods beyond the safe warm farmhouse, the sky swaddled in gray cloud and mist, another soggy English winter on the way. He had been cold for months, mourning the event even before it happened and now was himself hollow as a shell: no longer protecting the fragile matter within, his immediate grief burned away.

He would always think of it as the Fall, now. Autumn too warm and bright a term for this dearth…the absence those left behind, it was a tangible thing to feel and to see.

The dance of dust motes…forty years in the blink of an eye. _Goodbye._

The envelope was addressed in an unfamiliar hand, but inside was another envelope inscribed with his name alone, and he knew from whence it came. His hand shook as he read the missive within.

_Dave –_

_I do not ask you this lightly. Please go to Le Rouret, before the estate is settled and Jamie and Gala decide to sell the villa, or what-have-you. God forbid they should keep it but I cannot tell them why._

_You know._

To see Rick’s handwriting again…it was not unusual, he had dozens of examples of it in his possession. But this, it unnerved him in a way which made his skin prickle with gooseflesh, look over his shoulder, hear and see something which clearly was only in his mind, not in the still morning of …only an old, balding, dumpy man whose eyes of sky now required spectacles, but some things were not lost to time.

Such as fear.

_I ask you not only as my friend, my colleague…but whatever else there was. Whatever else kept me from giving my whole heart to anyone because you laid claim to some part of it long ago._

_Please._

Such as desire.

_I know you pitied me, but if you ever did more than that – for those you do love – in the name of all I hold dear, please make an end to it, somehow._

_I will miss you more than I can ever express, but am happy I didn’t miss you any less in all those years…I’m happy you found me again._

_R._

Such as regret.

It was difficult to remain taciturn in the jumbled noise and tussle of family life. Polly would never allow him to brood too long, she rarely missed even the slightest of mood shifts.

“You don’t look sad now,” she observed, the night after the letter arrived. “You look worried.”

David stared at his after-dinner cappuccino, watching the dollop of steamed milk slowly succumb to the espresso, muddying the purity of each into something other.

“The –“ at this he cleared his throat, “- solicitor has asked me to go to Le Rouret, to look through his things there. It was Rick’s specific request, apparently.”

“Why not Gala?”

“I’m not sure. But it will make me sad, I think, to see the house like that. Empty.”

“Should I –“ Polly’s mind leapt immediately to the options. Having her mother come to stay for what she assumed would be a weekend of tying up loose ends.

“No I need to do this alone. I’ll be alright.”

Her dark eyes worried at his composure, looking for whatever was underneath his reply. Ginger had once screamed at him that he was a _goddamn Pisces sneak_ and he hadn’t known what that meant until she left him, after her suspicions were formed and finally bloomed poisonous and overwhelming.

He did, truly, have many secrets.

David had been wondering, for example, whom to talk to about this. There were, at best, a handful of people who would understand. Who were there during the scorching spring and summer of initial discovery. Who down the years might have forgotten but found themselves wondering – upon hearing a certain type of sound – if what they _thought_ they had seen was merely a fancy. Who knew, ultimately, that it didn’t matter _what_ they believed…because belief only meant they implicated themselves in something which went much deeper than their own experiences.

Something which roamed the edges of consensual sanity.

And howled.

David sat in his home studio staring at the phone, playing chords on one of his Martins without truly hearing them, his fingers forming them from sheer muscle memory while consciousness had other concerns. He thought about conversations yet to come. He thought about what he was going to say when he and Polly had dinner with Guy and Gala that night. David was planning to make Dumplings Five Ways – a favorite of Gala’s – a dish he had learned from his mother-in-law. He hoped it might soften his insistence regarding going it alone. Guy might possibly understand but misinterpret the mission as a lark when it was anything but. Gala was simply…too fragile to hope to entertain such a notion if he attempted to explain it to her.

He thought about whom he should phone first. Conversations already completed, but those were stilted exchanges, formalities and oft-rehearsed dialogues, variations of conversations held years ago, and just the other day.

He called Phil, it was always easy to speak to Phil.

“You realize, sir, that Chelsea is the match of the day?” was the response to his greeting.

“And you should realize how hopeless it is to root for them. Say…can I meet you at The White Hart, for a chat?”

A pause, he could actually hear his technician’s confusion in the otherwise silent moment.

“Certainly but –“

_Why can’t we just meet at the boat?_

“Need privacy,” was all David said in response.

“Right then.”

If David wore his prescription glasses and a hat, a jumper pulled over his trusty black t-shirt, jeans and trainers, no one ever thought twice to recognize him. But sunnies were _too_ obvious, the refuge of the _please don’t recognize that I’m hiding from you_. He sat at the bar, sipping a pint, trying his best to resist the bowl of mixed snacks near his elbow. It had been a while since he’d been in the local by himself; usually if he did pop ‘round it was in the company of Phil Manzanera or Guy, two rather garrulous people who could amuse him while he sat quietly. When he drank with Phil Taylor the two were equally silent unless something need be said. His loyal employee was a sarcastic terror when prompted or in his cups, but otherwise one of the cornerstones of their long partnership was a shared horror of people who never knew when to shut up.

Phil had a little further to drive, he arrived almost an hour after David, bringing in the cold upon his clothing.

“Cyn let you out for a lark then?”

“She and her mum went to Brighton. Damned if I know why, but there ‘tis.”

He motioned to the barman for the same as his boss; they both drank for a while, eyes upon the television in the corner, showing some other match, an international one. After a time they moved to a free booth, and David began to nibble at a handful of nuts and savoury crackers, something to do, to forestall the moment when he invoked that which made him feel a kind of terror unequalled in his existence.

“I have to go to Le Rouret,” he finally said.

Phil set down his glass with a startled motion, the ale sloshing within.

“Why?” he asked in a strangled whisper.

“Rick’s last request, I s’pose. He wants me to see to it before Jamie and Gala do whatever they will. He left the villa to them.”

“See to what?” Phil continued, in the same hissing tone. “Rubbish, bollocks!”

“Then you’ll come? Since it’s merely _rubbish_ , I mean.”

The two stared at one another, and Phil’s complexion resembled a wedge of Stilton without the mould. Thoroughly pale and sickly.

“I –“

“I thought as much. S’alright, dear, but no harm in asking.”

“David, I –“

“Funny though, isn’t it?” David continued, as though Phil had not spoken. “He went back for years, for long periods of time, even. He loved it there.”

“Or maybe he _had_ to.”

“Obligation is –“

“- as good as a wink to –“

They chuckled. They each knew about obligation.

“Y’know wot I think?” Phil went on, and from his tone – somewhat more level but now with that familiar piss-and-vinegar behind the words – David knew he was about to say something imbued with less tact than he normally employed with his boss.

“Do tell, Phillip.”

“I think you should talk to Millie.”

If David could have seen himself he knew he would have been equally pale at the thought. Because he knew what Phil meant.

“Well of course it might have been true, but I’d never suggest –“

“Just ask her what she thought she saw.”

“But who knows if she even remembers –“

“Seeing something which temporarily drove her insane? I bloody well know **I** would!”

“Rather insensitive, wouldn’t you say, kiddo?”

Phil looked up. David hadn’t called him that in years. Decades, even. Someone else had inherited that sobriquet, or a variation thereof.

“I’ve stood by you, sir, through it all, but –“

David smiled, but it was not a fond smile.

“You weren’t there, I know. Not to really _know_.”

Phil drained his glass, wiped his mouth. David mused, looking at his cherished assistant’s face in the light from the window above the booth, that Phil was finally starting to look his age, after years of keeping maturity at bay. He suddenly felt old again, older than he was and older than he thought he should be to have to face something like this.

“I **was** , David. And that’s why I don’t want to go.”

They were silent again. David thought of two people: each with five letters in their name - three consonants and two vowels – whom he would also have to ask. And each might also decline. But they knew the same as Phil that there was something in Le Rouret which waited for them and only them.

“Rubbish, hmm?”

Phil put his hand against his forehead, elbow upon the table.

“Who the bloody fuck said I knew anything ‘bout _anything_?”

“Dunno how that rumour got ‘round, dear.”

Millie had a well-appointed townhouse in Highgate in which she resided alone; Ben was off at university studying something vague much like what Charlie was now doing. She seemed slightly puzzled but wholly polite at the sight of him on her doorstep.

“David, I’m –“

“I’m sorry I didn’t ring beforehand, Millie, but I wasn’t certain how to broach the subject.”

She led him into a sitting room crammed with antiques. A tea set was already upon the table, but he declined, even after she offered to make him a coffee.

“Of what?” she asked, seating herself. She wore a navy blue blouse paired with a dark gray a-line skirt which she kept straightening with the palms of her hands. She was still a very beautiful woman…Rick had the knack of attracting the beauties, though he claimed he was no Casanova. But they all wanted to save him, somehow, even as it was a hopeless task. The bedrock of his personality was ever unknowable and perhaps even destructive, but he guarded it always with diligent reserve.

“It has to do with La Rouret.”

Her face froze but her hands kept up their nervous motion.

“The house?”

“Yes.”

“The solicitor said it was left to Jamie and Gala. Ben wasn’t happy ‘bout that, but –“

“But you know why that’s not such a bad thing.”

She averted her eyes, her expression turned frightened.

“Millie, what happened that day you were put in hospital? Was it really the way you said?”

Her eyes, wide and watery, and a lovely shade of blue, regarded her guest. She blinked rapidly, her head twitched which mussed her spun-gold hair just the slightest bit. Her speech was breathless in response.

“What are you suggesting?!”

“That you knew you couldn’t tell what really happened. Rick would likely believe you but pretend you were truly raving. For the sake of his own sanity as well. And of course it was something no one else would believe. Unless they’d seen it for themselves.”

“He told me not to leave the grounds. To stay within the walls, on the property. Not to go to the village unless I was driving the car. Not to go out after dark. I thought he meant –“

“He couldn’t tell you _what_ meant. But it happened nonetheless.”

 _Sunset…the air still warm, she floated in the water warmed by the sun contemplating the way the sky became a deeper blue, almost purple, with the setting sun. Peaceful, she closed her eyes. But then the air was filled with a thick pungent stench…something feral. She opened her eyes again and screamed at what she saw looking down at her from the lip of the pool. It smiled, and its’ face was almost human but its’ teeth were monstrous._

_It smiled…and it growled._

“I don’t know what you’re referring to!” she exclaimed, nearly screaming again as she had in memory.

“Millie, you went into a crippling depression for nearly a year. I know what you saw, I’ve seen it too, or thought I saw it. And now he wants me to go back. I’m not even certain what it is he wants me to _do_ –“

“It’s –“

“What?”

“He said it’s there.”

“In the house?”

“No, not the house, but…somewhere near. It knew him, it spared him.”

David felt his heart hammering in his chest. … _please put an end to it, somehow_.

To what? And how?

The memorial was comforting, alienating and just plain sad. So much crying, everyone was crying…so strange for his generation, David thought. Some of it didn’t surprise him – Storm reduced to tears during his turn at the podium and unable to finish – but watching James - who disliked public speaking but usually managed to entertain people nonetheless - staring into space for several minutes at more than one point, wide eyes shining in the ambient lighting, before picking up where he had left off…David supposed he didn’t realize the other felt a bond with Rick…and his mind went back to that time immediately. James was always the apologist for Rick. Four people producing a record…David now understood the idea was absurd, but at the time he did believe the more barriers erected between himself and Roger the better. And they had come to depend on him, perhaps more than they should, but even their combined technical expertise was no match for his innate, almost eerie, abilities.

_Not the only thing which was **eerie** , of course._

Every time Roger made some cutting jibe or acidic observation, James would simply, in a completely normal tone of voice, give his professional opinion of a particular track which Rick had recorded…usually the night before, after the others had gone. The months went by and the boy was wasting away before his eyes from too much work, too much play, and not enough sleep…but without him Rick might have been forced out of the collective much sooner than he was and truly been non-existent on the recording itself.

But of course Roger made certain everyone _thought_ he wasn’t there anyway. Too many times David had thrown a magazine or a book across the room in disgust.

“Sodding bastard – thinks he did it all himself? Fuck him!”

For years, whenever he might have reason to complain, the other would merely shrug.

“We know what we did, David. And the rest doesn’t matter.”

_How do you do that?_

On the other hand, he knew the other tended to cringe at everything he had ever worked on – even that which was critically lauded, wildly popular, and even award-winning – so James’ equanimity was merely a matter of emotional distance.

But now to the matter at hand…taking him aside after the event itself, as everyone milled about, drink in hand and softly conversing with smiles and much touching. Each to remind themselves that they, and those before them, were still here.

“How long were you planning to stay?” 

James looked confused. “Another week.”

“D’ya wanna come to France with me?”

“Whatever for?”

There were others nearby, and for some reason he didn’t care to say the actual place name.

“Think ‘bout it, boy…why would I be asking you such a thing? Now.”

James suddenly turned pale. “Not _that_!” he said in a whisper, but an emphatic one.

David nodded, sipping his wine.

James’ eyes darted about, then he moved away from where they were standing, towards a corner of the hall which was less crowded. David followed, pausing to nod and smile at a few hails.

“Why?” the question came when they were slightly more isolated.

Suddenly David was distracted by a realization...they were dressed nearly alike: in black shirts and dress trousers, sport coat which didn’t match the other pieces. He almost chuckled despite the circumstance.

“Rick asked me to go to the villa before Jamie and Gala do. Before they could discover –“

James turned away, shaking his head.

“Listen to me,” David continued, stepping closer and keeping his voice low. “Whatever you think _now_ , you know what happened _then_.”

“Madness!” James hissed between clenched teeth, in much the same tone Phil had said _rubbish_ over a week before.

David’s eyes beheld the floor, but not before looking at the back of the other’s neck. Even now, thirty years on…he could smell _his_ James, that lovely warm skin, and a sense of loss…for everything: for Rick, for the band, for the halcyon upheaval of that spring and summer in 1979…and for love, subsumed him. Love secret and love lost, love never named and love never claimed.

He thought he might finally cry in that moment.

“Yes,” David said, after a time. “Yes it was.”

They flew into Nice and rented a car. The South of France was one of those places where things could change – and often did – but much of it would never change. Centuries past stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the Now and it gave David a feeling of vertigo in a way which a city like Rome – possessing much of the same ambiance - did not.

James drove from the airport to the village, expertly navigating the narrow streets, twisting thoroughfare of the A8, and inexplicable traffic. David found himself staring at fields, hills, the sky dotted with clouds, and seeing not _now_ , but _then_. He found himself thinking in French again, much as he always did whenever he was in the country for more than a few days.

James remained silent, fiddling with the radio as the signal for some classical station kept drifting out of range. It was an endearing habit, David mused, though he thought of times when it had annoyed him, driving back from a late night wired on blow and yet thoroughly exhausted with the effort of pretending a great many things.

Pretending not to feel.

Now he looked at that rounded face with the silly goatee and there was no pretense in the warm surge of affection he felt. They had reached an impasse of sorts: letting go of their need for physical contact even as their need to be connected on an almost-daily basis continued unabated: idle conversations, teasing, and jovial debates about a wide range of subjects. They possessed the same mindset regarding a great many things, but each held strong opinions which sometimes clashed more than they meshed. But James was still _his_ , and would always be. It made it easier to consider the past in the face of whatever it was they were to discover.

Passing by miles of vineyards, the vines having changed with the season to a fiery red – as if predicting the wine they might soon be a part of – the syrupy light of Autumn poured over all he could see. The light in summer was unforgivingly glaring but at this time of year the landscape had a sort of painterly aura to it, the source of all the rapture for the scenic clime. There seemed to be a calm upon the land, in the wake of summer’s demands now receded, a palpable peace settling down like a blanket. David felt his eyes tear a few times before they reached the village, to recall certain days and nights. Part of him had never left that place, he reckoned, a desirous ghost remained in the house in Saint-Jeannet, in the environs of Super Bear, on the winding roads between Nice and Berre-les-Alpes.

James turned at the crossroads marking Cagnes sur Mer, then onto the final narrow byway leading into Le Rouret. Up into the hills above the Cote d’Azur, the walls of ancient stone and signs of habitation becoming visible from behind trees and hedgerows: a cluster of villas with their ubiquitous red-tile roofs, colorful gardens, the fountain at the center of the village where they finally stopped, as David needed to see the estate agent for the keys to the villa. At the café across the town square, a group of men playing dominos and snacking on olives and _pomme frites avec aioli_ observed the pale Englishmen with direct scrutiny but an absence of curiosity. David emerged from the car and looked around for the correct address. He seemed stymied and crossed the cobblestone space, addressing the men in flawless French. James gazed at the surroundings but did not see what lay in front of him. He had never returned to this region – and visited the country only a handful of times since 1979 – because he carried it around in his head all the time. He often dreamed of summer in Provence…he could remember exactly how it smelled in July when the heat was nearing the apex of swelter.

A nightingale trilling quicksilver notes in the dead of night…the achingly deep blue of the sea…throbbing music and warm flesh…and darkness. Darkness enough to hide any number of indiscretions, secrets, and –

“Right then,” David said, walking towards the car dangling a set of keys from his index finger. “Onward, eh? Or shall we have a nosh first?”

James looked at his watch. “Don’t want to be here after dark.”

David nodded. “I wholly agree.”

\- _horrors_.

The two-storey villa was thoroughly luxurious – it could sleep twelve if necessary – ensconced behind high walls and a wrought-iron gate guarding the entrance, stone lions on either side. It was like something out of one of those TV shows, James thought, _Lifestyles of the Rich and Miserable_. For as long as he knew Rick, the other never seemed particularly happy…never at home in his own skin. Then again, he tended to encounter Rick in those situations which were particularly prone to induce unhappiness.

The silence struck him once they had unlocked the gate and pulled the car inside the property. He stood on the edge of the portico while David struggled with the locks on the front door, wary of the lack of sound. It was decidedly unnatural.

“D’ya hear anything?” he asked David as they stood upon the threshold.

“We’re in the country, dear,” David replied, his voice lilting with the slightest hint of a tease. It was his normal tenor when speaking with James.

“Yes but – I can’t hear _anything_ , not even birdsong.”

David frowned, pausing with his hand on the doorknob. “Hmm. Y’don’t hear anything the next village over?”

James looked confused for mere seconds, then rolled his eyes. “David, with all due respect, piss off.”

“Well one wonders just _how_ haunted this region is, that’s all.”

“Flippancy is not the attitude I am choosing to espouse. What are we supposed to be doing, then?”

“Dunno, exactly.” David stepped forth into the foyer, looking up at the chandelier which hung exactly in the center of the ceiling. He half expected it to sway, and had to remind himself it wasn’t a ghost they were dealing with.

He looked around, and spied a DVD box on a marble-topped console table, next to the telephone. There was a post-it note on the box, again a familiar hand had inscribed his name.

“This might explain things,” he said, crossing the space and picking up the box. James nodded and walked down the hallway to the formal living room, where a large-screen television and accompanying media system were set up. The décor was a bit cold, so the components didn’t appear particularly out of place. Rick was very much a fan of clean lines and empty spaces, Gala had inherited some of her aesthetic sense from her father. David seated himself as James quickly found the appropriate remote control and brought the system to humming glowing life. He inserted the DVD-R from the case and they watched the screen till suddenly Rick appeared and they both started with the slightest of movements.

“Hello Dave,” Rick said, after clearing his throat. David gasped with a small sigh, his friend and bandmate looked so thin and pale as revealed by whatever camera he had used to record himself. His stylish button-down shirt hung on his bony frame. His hair was an iron-gray lion’s mane as it had been for many years, but his stormy eyes seemed dim as they stared into the lens. “I assume you brought someone with you, let’s see…probably Phil, or James, likely James. Hello James.”

James found himself smiling at the hail, even as it was one of the saddest things he’d ever heard…the voice of a electronic apparition.

“I’m glad you came, glad you understand how important this is. I won’t be long, I get tired very easily these days. Can’t let Gala catch me or I’ll be confined to my bed all day. But they’re bringing me back to Blighty, though I don’t want to go. Rather think I should die here, seems fitting somehow.”

James thumbed the Pause button on the remote. “If we have to watch this, I need a drink.”

David nodded. “Let’s see if the cupboard is bare, or not.”

They went into the spacious all mod-cons kitchen and began looking through the cabinets. David found a bottle of scotch and several bottles of wine in the pantry, his engineer voted for the scotch. James rinsed and dried dusty glasses and they returned to the dove-gray sofa in the living room, starting the disc again.

“I found this house in 1979, you know that. There was a local girl I could never quite spirit as far as Super Bear, she was from the village. She brought me here, can you believe we climbed that wall out there? Empty, it was, she had a way in. Each time I felt as though I belonged here. And I liked being alone, sometimes. No offense, James, but sometimes it was a bit too much like school to be there on the premises, with your _Rick, are you ready to have a play?_ , ever so polite, of course, but such a taskmaster!”

He chuckled then, the man on the screen, and it turned into a coughing fit. His audience found themselves cringing.

“Sorry ‘bout that,” he said, once breath was regained. “Have to be careful in regards to mirth these days. Dave, there’s a journal I kept – I’ve hidden it in the piano –“

David and James turned their heads to view said piano at the other end of the room.

“ – it’s taped to the underside, actually. It explains everything. It’s from that time, primarily. You’re going to learn something you might not wish to know. My last secret –“

At this, Rick smiled ruefully.

“ – and it may explain some things that were never understood. We just ignored so much over the years, didn’t we? S’pose we thought we had to. But of course what one doesn’t realize is when you do that, you create your own ghosts, as it were. They haunt you for the rest of your life. No matter what you might do, or don’t do, how your life may change, in fact.”

Rick put a hand to his chest.

“Goodness, I’m gasping again. Must have a lie-down. But – well, let me just tell you that I knew, I knew it all along. It was unmistakable, the joy in your face. And that’s what brought him to the brink, y’know.”

The screen was suddenly filled with static, then turned black.

“Problem?” David asked, then drained his glass. His eyes watered, he hadn’t had a stiff drink in at least a couple months.

James hit Replay and Rick reappeared after a few seconds, he ran it again at normal speed. He then thumbed the Fast Forward button for a time. “Seems that’s all there is.”

David rose and walked over to the piano, then got down on his knees and peered underneath. “And here ‘tis,” he said, reaching in and pulling out a leather-bound journal which had been affixed to the instrument with a wide swatch of gray gaffer’s tape.

James suddenly looked surprised. “Huh.”

“Wot?”

“I remember that book. After dinner, we’d usually sit ‘round for a bit, chatting, finishing the wine, and Rick would write in it. It made sense, somehow…he was so quiet I imagined he just wasn’t one for talking. He preferred to write it all down.”

“In all our days I never saw him do such a thing. Roger, yes, he was always writing things down. But the rest of us, we weren’t necessarily reflective. Then again, Nicky did surprise us all with his chronicles. Had no idea he was taking notes!”

James chuckled. He took the journal from David’s hand and carefully removed the tape from the cover. “What did he mean he ‘knew?’”

David returned to the couch and picked up his glass, eying the amber residue at the bottom. “Come now, clever thing, you _know_. What were the secrets of that year, hmm? One, that you and I were involved –“

“- in absolute madness.” James interjected as he flipped through the pages.

“Be that as it may,” David continued. “Two, that there was _something_ ‘round these parts that was…well, neither man nor beast. And now, apparently –“

“ – three: Roger and Rick were also…involved.”

David dropped his glass, looking over at his colleague with absolute shock. “Wha –“ He couldn’t even get out the entire word, so profound was his amazement.

James read from the journal. “ _17 April: I don’t know what made me go to Vence, I didn’t think I’d see R there, but he was, he joined me at the bar. He was even pleasant for about an hour. Then he said it, plain as all: come back with him and we could both forget about D for a while. And I did. I feel ashamed, but what else is there to feel? Other than cold and dead inside._ ”

“Good lord,” David finally said, softly.

“I’ll fetch something to clean this up with. Don’t move, David, you don’t want to step on the broken glass.”

James handed him the journal and returned to the kitchen. David turned to the first page.

 _5 January_  
_I thought I might. At my own party, even, I was going to do it. But that would have been terrible, left them sad, though I wonder how sad anyone would be if I was gone. Seems my presence is more upsetting than my absence. So I didn’t. And then R came yesterday and he wanted to talk. I don’t know what there is to discuss, but it’s not discussion, not with him. He talks. And finally he stopped talking and pinned me to the sofa. He never says what he wants, he just takes it like he’s always taken everything I wanted and having had it all, now he’s after me._

_But I feel like it’s not me at all, it’s only a body to him. Something to distract him from doing something much worse._

The bright lights and bustle of the _Promenade des Anglais_ was comforting after the unearthly silence of Le Rouret. David and James took their dinner in David’s suite at the Hotel Negresco, the familiar dulcet tones of an announcer on the Beeb coming from the television. They hadn’t spoken since leaving the villa, other than David reading aloud from the journal. Each was assailed by their own memories of those same days as recalled by Rick’s specific sorrow. Though David knew that the other had been depressed and diminished he had no idea how deep the chasm had been…until reading the words written by his absent friend.

“The ratatouille is good, hmm?” David observed, chasing his bite with a gulp of wine.

“Yes,” James said, regarding the food on his plate, then looking away with a sigh. He also drank, though it did naught to displace the growing dread within him.

“Can you imagine it?” he finally said, as much to himself as to his dinner companion.

“No dear. If we didn’t have the evidence, as it were, I wouldn’t believe it. Still can’t quite understand it.”

“It’s like – I can’t even think of the word for it. Like seeing something no one was ever meant to.”

“Who knows what Rick _meant_ to do.”

“But what are we supposed to do?”

“I don’t know. I still don’t know what he meant for me to do.”

“If we go back, we can’t stay there.”

“We might have to.”

“I can’t –“ James paused, picked up his fork then set it down again. “I can’t.”

“I know what you’re afraid of…and it is not _La Bête_.”

“I’m expected to relive the past on a daily basis.”

“You _chose_ that responsibility, dear.”

“And as I’ve been saying for decades now, what else could I do?”

“Are we back to that same argument? I’m so tired of arguing, with everybody.”

“I’ve no quarrel with you, not anymore, you know that. But I don’t want to go through the Looking Glass, it was bad enough the first time.”

David set down his glass of wine, looked at the one who was still the source of a very strong and poignant desire, feeling a slight affront at the choice of phrase.

“It was one of the happiest times of my life. Haven’t I ever said that?”

“Not when it would have mattered. Two tortured people gain small comfort even when the source of the torture is their own shared feelings. There was always…regret, in your eyes.”

“So whatever I say in clarification now doesn’t matter, is that it?”

“I don’t require clarification. Clarity, on the other hand, is always welcome.” James drank from his glass, undermining his own pronouncement…or perhaps not. _In vino veritas._

“What gives me pause is…not going back, because it is a wonderful place. But knowing. I don’t think I want to know. And yet I realize that’s what’s left to us…all the details waiting to be brought to light. The clamour for _information_. We lived it, there’s no need to keep telling the story. But that’s all they want now, they want _all_ the stories.”

James grimaced. “Yes, the stories we don’t want to tell, they all want to know. The stories we **do** tell, nobody listens to.”

“I couldn’t live with myself, if something was left undone. After the mess we made.”

“You _chose_ to make that mess, sir.”

David looked peeved for a moment, then began laughing. “ _Touché_ , mon whiz kid.”

_We’re going to France, back to the place where last year I had been happy. To think that now I’ll be there with him; must he destroy everything good in my memory?_

It was early, David hadn’t checked his watch or the clock but judged it so by looking out at the Cote d’Azur, the water was rippling gray glass upon the long sandy stretch below his window. The sky was overcast, swatches of cloud shone with a pinkish light as the sun moved behind, emerging from the horizon. Gulls and cormorants clustered on the rocks, squawking and snapping at one another. He put his forehead against the glass, thinking about what he had read. But the specific thoughts concerning Rick became hopelessly entwined with his own memories of that time, that place. The taste of certain wines, for example, brought it back immediately. Polly had once unwittingly opened a bottle of Chateau Miraval 1975 and from first sip David found himself seeing James’ face rather than his wife’s in that moment: the two of them in the house in Saint-Jeannet, sharing wine and their lives and, always, their passion.

He had set down his glass and put his fist to his lips to forestall…tears, perhaps.

Polly had made a noise of concern and he told her it was a moment of indigestion. David remembered that feeling, over the years, when he thought he might actually vomit up all the subterfuge and everyone would see, finally. See what he had been hiding, and suppressing, all those years…most of his life, in fact.

But now he had finally gained peace, of a kind, and he wondered if Rick had ever come to that point. He claimed to be happier within the last twenty years or so, but again David now wondered if it was merely an assurance to others, much as he’d done.

_Fine, it’s fine._

Because one did not tell, not those tales which would have wrecked them all as surely as they were finally destroyed, over issues large and small. But the heart of the matter was forever unacknowledged.

 _Wine_ , he’d once said in answer to a query regarding what he recalled of that time. “I remember wine and heat and that ridiculous little room we were all crammed into, trying to agree on something, anything.”

The answer was true, but not complete.

 _10 April_  
_I’d forgotten how quiet it is here at night. But I hear dogs, I think. Tante, our cook, she says it’s wolves. I didn’t think there were wolves so far south. She says there are many things here which do not show themselves till the summer. I wonder how long we’ll be here, when I can go to_

The entry halted, as if Rick had been interrupted. It was never completed, the next day he had moved on to another mania.

_11 April_  
_Every morning they roll their eyes at me, those two. Shifting alliances, I wish they’d decide on one or the other, they’re like the worst of quarreling lovers. They are. There, I’ve finally written it down. Were, but not now. Something else to scribble later, I think. And R came to my room, late. Came back from his own house, in fact. Listening to Miles and drinking too much and he came in and said “don’t talk.” He’s always saying that. Never lets me talk. But he talks, doesn’t he? Though not then, he didn’t talk either except to say “yes,” and “more.” And of course I can’t throw it in his face, can I? The next day, when he insults me in front of everyone._

_~~Bastard~~._

_12 April_  
_After dinner, James asked me to come to the studio, and then he said, “Why don’t you play some Hammond for a while, to the click? I’ll just roll tape, shall I?” He looked so expectant, smiling, as if it would be the nicest thing. He tries so hard, but that’s good for us, I think. Better than Brian, skulking about after Roger had beaten him down. Better than Griff, who does nothing unless Roger commands. James didn’t rush me, didn’t even seem to pay attention for a time. He set the levels and cued the tape and then I just played while he read a book. Didn’t stop me, I played till the tape ran out and he said he’d go through it and keep the best bits. He said it was brill, said he was listening the whole time. He can do that, listen and do something else at the same time. We were going to go outside, it was still warm by the pool and he stopped, with a strange look. “Do you hear something?” he asked. And I did, I heard the dogs again. He frowned. “Wild dogs, roaming the countryside? Seems rather dangerous.” I think I said something about Bob’s ex-clients coming after him, and we laughed. We had a drink, I went to bed, but James was still working. He’s earning his money, certainly._

_14 April_  
_The dogs, again. When the night goes very quiet, not even the birds sing. It’s Spring, the birds should be loud now. Hungover again. Too much wine, went to the village, pretty girl there. Reminds me of J, long brown hair, very slim. I followed her to a deserted house. Don’t remember what came next. Took a while to walk back, got lost, ended up in a wooded area between the village and the studio, didn’t know it was there. Got turned around, my head was killing me. Thought someone was following me. Bad smells. Cold, in the shadows. Then suddenly there was the road, and the big trees nearby. Not going off the road again. Not even in daylight._

_But she was very pretty._

Fear. Desire. Regret.


	2. Sirius rises late (1979)

Sirius rises late in the dark, liquid sky  
On summer nights, star of stars,  
Orion's Dog they call it, brightest  
Of all, but an evil portent, bringing heat  
And fevers to suffering humanity.  
\- Homer, _Iliad_

They had driven to Eze one day. David’s cook told him it was a beautiful little village high above the sea, time had not touched its’ medieval architecture or quiet ways. Though he truly wanted nothing more than to drowse in the heat with the one who spurred his desire within – new and hot and like nothing he had felt before – he knew it was unfair to keep him wholly indoors during their tenure here. Provence was a beautiful region and deserved to be enjoyed, especially by James…he who worked harder than anyone else involved in their venture.

They had walked about the village, admiring the buildings and stopping for lunch in the one café which appeared to be open. They were served rather than ordering, but the food – as with nearly every meal they’d eaten in the region – was delicious. They talked about everything but work, sharing anecdotes of their youth. David told James stories of his previous sojourns in France. He liked the way James listened to him: completely focused and apparently enthralled. After their meal they walked again and came to stand at the end of the main street, looking out towards the sea which was miles down and away. The height was a bit dizzying if one stared too long at the jagged mountains below. They were each sweating from the sun and the wine despite the steady breeze coming through from the ocean.

“Provencal heat,” David murmured, wiping at his forehead, “it’s like being smothered by a very large dog.”

James chuckled. “Makes me think of Portugal. I’d never been to a place so hot.”

They looked at one another, their hair fluttering in the breeze, the glare causing them to squint but not desiring to look away. They could not touch – not at that moment – but they could stare as long as they liked and their staring could express all they could not say.

“And here you are, once again in the heat.”

David watched the blush rise from James’ chest up to his cheeks, flushing that skin which reminded him of porcelain, so flawlessly smooth.

“Yes,” the source of his desire replied quietly. “It’s hot.”

So many layers of meaning, intimation and innuendo in those words, and David knew them all in an instant. It was all he could do not to pull the other to him and bury his face in that sable hair, breathing in the scent which continually obsessed him at the most inconvenient moments.

High in the mountains above the sea – on a picture-perfect day in a beautiful corner of the living history of France – two men found themselves surrendering to a force they believed would likely destroy their peace of mind, but each knew themselves helpless to resist. They smiled – by turns subtle and sly – and for a moment imagined their secret safe from the rest of their tumultuous lives. Choosing not to acknowledge that particular secret was actually undermining the very foundation of the enterprise they had both sworn to see through, no matter the ultimate cost.

The breeze brought a chill, and David suddenly shivered despite the heat.

“We should get back,” he said, turning away from the glorious sights before him.

James nodded and they made their way back to David’s car in silence.

 _It’s hot_. Their passion could burn down the countryside, David believed, level the villages and scorch the earth and still not come close to the utterly overwhelming inflamed desire he felt at that moment. As if he could eat his sweet boy alive, suck on his bones, without a second thought. A madness only intensified by the place and the time in which they found themselves. An idyll treasured, but one which would pass all too soon.

James was ready to fall asleep, the day entire had been treacle-slow: rising to ready himself then sitting through a mostly-silent breakfast with the other boarders in the complex, though Rick was absent, as had become his custom now during the day. James and Phil would then go into the studio and prepare for the arrival of the principals at ten o’clock. Once they appeared, after an hour of debate and meandering conversation, it was time for elevenses, and they all might wander out onto the patio for tea or coffee and biscuits. Nick was always ready with some humorous anecdotes, it was difficult to tell what the others were thinking – if in fact those thoughts were musically-inclined at all. David tended to look at James as if **he** were a biscuit, and it still provoked a strange squirming ambivalence within, even as he had accepted the mantle of secret desire. Back inside they would spend a couple hours working on one idea before lunch. After lunch they would be more productive, but it was always torturous trying to get something accomplished before two o’clock. And as they were ever-prompt regarding quitting time, it was important to get as much productivity out of them as possible, James saw that as his primary responsibility…because no one, including the _other_ producer, was likely to do so at this juncture. Sometimes he felt rather alone in all this, or if not alone (because Phil was his ally when he needed one), at least the only one who was reasonably sane. Sometimes he would long for Phil to explain the way the others lived, the way they related to one another and saw themselves within the greater context of the world, and the other would grin and shake his head.

“Company men tell no tales, Guthrie. Remember that.”

And it did make an impression, early on. James normally kept a diary of sessions: each day’s events - and the ideas which came out of those hours of working - but he was loathe to do so now, there was just too much which could be misconstrued or just plain harmful to the public perception of the edifice. He had seen too much…but he was in, so whatever he saw or heard he was expected to accept it and get back to work.

Lunch now, and the heat was rapidly evaporating the remaining chill from the plastered walls, the shimmering moment framed by the windows of the dining room: dancing motes of light, thick sunshine dripping upon glowing deep green leaves stirring in the hot breath of the day. The tree was the only thing which moved that he could see. Everyone was torpid as the remains of the meal stained plates painted with colorful cocks and dun hens. James regarded an olive on his plate, wondering if people really could move objects with their minds, and focused his conscious will upon that green – _olive green_ , his brain corrected, attempting to be helpful – fruit which didn’t taste like a fruit, of course. He had never been one for olives but they were ubiquitous here, so he ate them and didn’t dwell on the culinary affront.

“James, what are you doing?” Roger suddenly said, giving his engineer a comical glance, as if the other had gone mad.

“Trying not to land face down in my food.”

“No more wine for you,” David murmured, tipping a sly wink when the hazel eyes looked his way.

“We shouldn’t be eating so much,” Roger noted. “But they’d bill us for it any road, wouldn’t they?”

“Part of the service,” Phil noted, nodding his head.

“It’s so hot,” James began, then his voice trailed off as if the effort of elaboration was too difficult to actually pursue.

The relative peace of the complex was then disturbed by the throaty rumble of a car pulling up to the front entrance. Their gazes turned towards the doorway, then back to one another.

“I’ll have a word with that one,” Roger said, rising from the table and tossing back the rest of his wine.

David and Nick shrugged, Phil and James were unmoved. James regarded a slice of pear lying next to a piece of cheese on his dessert plate: both were a creamy shade of pale rather than the stark white of the walls, or the glare of the sky outside, the blue overtaken in the spectrum by the sunshine. He cut off a bit of each and married them on his fork, then in his mouth, chewing without really tasting either one, though the flavours were complimentary he imagined…the cheese mild and the fruit ripe and bright. Every day was somewhat surreal in his reckoning – _glacial_ was the wrong word for it but something similar. Perhaps the way a bead of sweat might slowly travel down skin, from the brow to the tip of the nose and then finally fall through the air. And because things moved so slowly his mind wandered to a place it would not normally…a place wherein desire demanded acknowledgment. There was no room for it, he believed, but he was now at the mercy of the machine: he lived in Floyd land, which ran on Floyd time, and whatever he _might_ have been once upon a time, he was now a Floyd man.

He saw himself as that piece of cheese, thoroughly bland and unassuming and ordinary. And the pear beckoned him once more with sweet flesh and pleasing form. To meld and compliment and attain something greater than either could alone.

It was hot in Hell, even as Hell was the most beautiful place he’d ever known.

Roger turned away from the accusatory eyes – a near chorus of them – in the control room. All of them had some complaint, save James. Their engineer had taken to staring at the console as if it held all knowledge, which he might decipher if he stared at it long enough. No room for an assistant in that cramped space, he ran everything himself. But it suited him to do so, leave nothing to chance.

David was disgusted, Rick was anguished, Bob was frustrated.

Nick was… not there, literally. After his daily sessions he was always quick to hop in his Ferrari and speed off for Nice, making note of his time to taunt the others with the next day. Roger could seem to see James ever-pondering how he could beat Nick’s newest run. It gave them a distraction, because he was afraid it was all going to come apart somehow. Roger always considered himself one for the grand concept, the big idea…but when the enormity of this particular enterprise really began to take hold, as well as the realization that none of them had any real money to front it…he would wake up in the middle of the night, terrified of possible ruin. Yet almost deterministic to a fault. At the expense of the faults of others. No room for anyone who was not willing to allow him to command.

They had been arguing about “Young Lust,” which Roger had wanted to keep in the realm of adolescent nostalgia and sexual confusion, whereas Bob had been lobbying for illuminating the alienation of the road, of being in a crowd of admirers and feeling completely alone.

“Something you wish you knew, eh Bob?” Roger had snapped. “Being a superstar?”

Granted, they were unused to working with someone so well-known. Roger and David were accustomed to being the famous ones in any collaboration.

Bob rolled his eyes, his tone that familiar hoarse braggadocio.

“Without me, lotta guys couldn’t even get on the fucking radio, right? So I’m famous enough, thanks.”

David shrugged, willing to concede the point. Rick appeared to be lost in thought, looking towards the door which led out to the hallway, James was writing in the studio log. Roger thought of making a sarcastic remark regarding how the boy was always scribbling, but decided he had brought enough friction to the proceedings for one day.

“But the story –“

“Roger, _the story_ needs some changing, we already agreed on that. C’mon, we’ve had this conversation about ten times now.”

Collective sighs. It was close enough to teatime for a drink, so a bottle of wine was passed around, though James opted for some actual tea. As the talk turned to a more mundane topic, Phil and James took apart the Stephens console once more.

“I thought you guys fixed the power conversion problem,” Bob noted.

They both targeted him with imperious glares. “We thought we had,” James replied, his tone almost frosty in comparison with the temperature of the room, “but apparently much like other things it remains _unreliable_."

Roger and David immediately began snickering, though they tried to hide their reaction. Had they been alone, Bob might have said something like _What is your fucking problem, Guthrie?_ but he said nothing, merely met the glance of the other with unwavering enmity. Roger made some kind of remark to break the ice and the moment went on…as the afternoon would go on, crawling until the hour when he could disengage himself from the nightmare and go back to civilization. It was actually kind of creepy in Berre-les-Alpes, so quiet and secluded…Bob had never worked anywhere other than a metropolis: Toronto, London, New York, Los Angeles…and so in this way Nice was a relief after the eerie peace of the area surrounding Super Bear. The others, though, they seemed to love it. Nick was the only one who craved a faster pace, though Bob could always tempt the collective into a visit during the weekend…with party favors and beautiful people and a way to unwind and mask the collapse of their enterprise with chemical bonhomie.

James laid down on the floor to examine the wiring - as Phil held the torch to illuminate inside as well as the panel they had taken off the front of the console - and David had stopped speaking, staring at the lithe form before him, biting his lower lip.

_He’s doing it again. Just staring at that boy like he used to stare at Roger. Funny how history repeats itself._

Rick was thinking back to the previous evening, of which precious little could be recalled. He didn’t think he had drunk that much, he was only looking to be out, away from the compound and one of Roger’s visits.

“Jonathan believes he’s finally built a proper brick.”

“Yeah?” Bob asked. “What’s it made of?”

“Cardboard. ‘Bout one kilo each, I think?”

“How many to build the wall then?” Phil queried.

“Hasn’t sussed that yet. One thing at a time, Philthy.”

“If that were true, wouldn’t even be thinkin’ ‘bout the show now, would we?” David muttered.

“Wot’s that, Dave?” Roger exclaimed, as if he hadn’t heard. But Rick knew he had. Then flashes came to him, of what he and the brunette had done in the empty house. She had given him wine, stronger wine than he was used to, it made him dizzy. They laid down upon the floor and she took care of him, her tongue fluttering over his skin like a wanton butterfly. She had – what? – smelled him too? Sniffing him all over…his head ached to recall how she had sniffed him head-to-toe. So peculiar, but she was lovely, willing, though strange…she didn’t speak much. In that they were a pair, he supposed. There was something _mysterious_ about her, he supposed, which he found attractive.

“Fuck!” James suddenly exclaimed from inside the console.

David smiled, nudged the other’s thigh with the toe of his trainer. “ _Merde_ , mon whiz kid.”

“This is totally bollocks’ed up, in any language.”

“What’s wrong now?” Bob inquired.

“There must have been a surge,” James said, wiggling out from inside the machine. “The patch panel for the tape drive is completely fried. Blackened, to be precise.”

“Have to use wot’s here then?”

James gave Roger a horrified look. “Bob’s quite ruined us for MCI consoles now. so we’ll need another. But not a Stephens, _please_. It sounds great but it runs like shite.”

“Look I know it’s fussy –“

“Fussy?!” Phil blurted out in response. “No, a baby is _fussy_ , this bloody thing is beyond temperamental. I say we call Abbey Road and get a Studer. We can still use the Stephens to monitor.” 

James nodded. “Tell them we need it _hier_."

David grinned and kissed his fingertips. 

The technical difficulties seemed to set the tone for the afternoon. More bickering disguised as discussion followed, but by five o’clock everyone departed the control room as Bob twirled his car keys on his index finger nervously.

“So I’ll –“

“Since you’re leaving early today I don’t believe it’s too much to ask that you be punctual for at least the rest of the week,” Roger said, his arms crossed against his chest and his tone acidic. “Can you manage it, then?”

“It’s not me, it’s the fucking traffic!”

Silence…but a highly doubting one.

Phil returned from telephone negotiations with a serious but satisfied expression. 

“Griff’s on it, he’s going over to sign the shipment order tomorrow morning. Special express freight.”

“Surprised he didn’t ask for Roger,” James gibed quietly, regarding a glass of wine.

“He doesn’t play that game with me, kid. I was there when he came, I’ll be there when he leaves.”

James chuckled. “There’s the rub…y’never let _anyone_ leave.”

“Well you’re not leaving, that’s for certain.”

A deep sigh. “Mayhap for an hour or two.”

“Wanna catch a flick then? Nothing to comp today, right?”

“ _C’est vrai_. But I think I’d rather be –“

“Alright James, but don’t go pouting in a pint, hmm? Prowling solo is fine but drinking alone is right out.”

The other nodded and sipped at his wine. They talked of other things, eventually joined by their associates, though Roger had departed not long after Bob. David was engaged in a conversation with the cook, chuckling in a surprised sort of way.

“Wot’s the joke, then?” Phil asked.

“Something about wolves?” James said, looking curious.

“She said to bar the door tonight, there’s a rogue wolf in the woods, or some such. Local legend, apparently.”

“A wolf is a wolf, but do they come this far south?”

“That’s what I wondered, but she said this region is known for strange things.”

They all looked over at Rick, who had set down his wine glass with a sudden _clank_. He looked ill, pale and sweating.

_That’s what I couldn’t remember. I saw it, looking in the window as we were -_

“You all right, Rick? Well that prat has stranded me, can you drop me home, James?” David inquired with the raise of a perfect eyebrow.

“I can –“ Phil responded, but James spoke at the same time.

“Sure Dave,” the tone quietly casual, then Rick was momentarily distracted from his flashback to see them exchanging a coy glance, though he could interpret the true import of the action.

“I’m not good enough, hmm? Don’t have a flash car like the Whiz Kid!”

“Nothing on your driving, dear, but yes I rather enjoy a fast car.”

“I’m fine,” Rick said.

“Looks a bit wilted, you do,” David observed. “This heat can wear you out before you know it.”

The cook called them for dinner, Rick watched David and James walk out the back to where James had parked his Pantera, David’s hand on the other’s shoulder. He thought of the previous evening…they had finished recording and sat outside on the front steps, the heat lingering as they shared a spliff and observed the night. Beyond the rustling of the trees nothing else was heard…perhaps a far-off keening, like dogs. They exchanged a questioning glance but did not seek an answer.

Rick gave James a crooked smile. “Keep wanting to call you Jamie.”

“Only the women in my life are allowed to call me that.”

“Has your girlfriend started complaining yet?”

James laughed. “Started the day we met! It was at a session and I kept the singers late because I kept hearing a hiss on the takes, was trying to work it out. She almost didn’t want to go out with me because I was, in her words, _a bloody slavedriver_.”

_And what does Dave say of you, I wonder?_

“So she’s accustomed to your absences, then.”

“Mostly. It’s more difficult for all of you, of course, having children.”

Rick nodded. “S’why I keep slipping. In my head, I mean. I miss them.”

“Well if you should slip while speaking I won’t take offense, Rick.”

The other smiled again, though his companion found it a bit more wistful as he passed the joint.

“It can get lonely, lad. Chasing glory.”

James exhaled, Rick could see him blushing through the smoke. “Not my glory I’m looking for.”

“I know.”

They stared at one another and Rick hoped James knew what he meant. But to watch him now - slightly leaning into the touch, laughing at something David said – it was likely he just wasn’t ready to hear it. For he thought he had caught the fabled creature…not realizing he was the one in the trap.

_Jealous again? Aren’t you tired of it all?_

He suddenly shuddered, Roger’s voice so clear in his mind it was almost as if he were there. He followed Phil into the dining room, wondering which was worse: his mystery woman and whatever lived in the woods beyond…or the _bête noir_ who came right to the door and demanded entry.

The moon had not yet risen from behind the hills and so the drive to Saint-Jeannet was a murky one, the road illuminated by the headlights of the Pantera but little else. It was still dusk but the sky had turned a dark and deep velvety blue…one of the things David loved about the country was how the lack of artificial light made for amazing sights above.

Eager to reach the destination his driver was a tad lead-footed, the two engaged in teasing conversation over the sounds of a previous day’s demo playing on fairly low volume when suddenly there appeared a large shadowy blur in the middle of the road. James stomped reflexively and the brakes screeched, the tyres sending up dust before they stopped within mere centimetres of the obstruction.

And saw. Or thought they saw.

Something which walked like a man, but was not.

“Bloody hell!” James exclaimed, but his voice did not rise above a whisper. The car suddenly stalled out, James switched off the stereo, and then the evening was absolutely _silent_ save their pounding hearts and heavy breathing…for a cause neither had been expecting.

David was too shocked to speak, because whatever it was looked at him, looked _into_ him…and smiled. The smile of recognition…predator to predator.

And then it was gone.

Neither knew how much time elapsed afterwards, as they sat terrified in the car, could not move or speak, could scarcely breathe. But then a sound, a long low moan, like a howl but something not entirely canine, made them flinch and lock their doors. James could not start his baby, assuming the engine was flooded. David took his hand.

“What –“

“Sssh. Listen: we musn’t tell, right? Can’t let on –“

“I’m well aware, David. Furthest thing from my mind at the moment.”

“Is it? You’re breaking my heart, boy. You’re all I think about.”

“David, stop –“

The other leaned in and put his lips to the trembling mouth. The howling which was not quite howling went on, but fear turned to desperate desire as they waited for it to abate. The interior grew humid as they kissed and groped with a fierceness born of their shared intensity. David began biting at James’ neck and the other moaned then pushed at his tormentor.

“So I’m to be mauled nonetheless?”

David looked dazed, panting, but managed to laugh.

“Well you’re supposed to be on the prowl…might as well bring back a trophy.”

David couldn’t see, but he could feel the heat of James’ flush.

“Not that sort.”

“Well I shall have to teach you, won’t I?”

“This is hardly the time or the place –“

“Dunno if you’ve noticed, kiddo, but there’s no one about.”

“There’s –“

“Ssssh.” David kissed the coveted lips again but this time James would not be distracted and turned his head away.

“You saw. Same as me. What the bloody fuck was that thing?!”

“I honestly don’t know. Doesn’t seem as if I saw _anything_ , since I can’t really say what I saw.”

“Is that what Tante meant, then? ‘Strange things?’”

“Could be. But I don’t believe in such things.”

“My mum used to say it didn’t matter whether you believed, but if it believed in _you_.”

“Scare tactics. _Behave, or the boogeyman will get you_.”

Then, the trill of a nightingale from a tree further down the road. Clear and pure, like water, like moonlight. James turned the key and the engine growled in response, a more welcome kind of animalistic sonic metaphor.

“I **am** frightened, logical or not,” he said, downshifting and moving forward along the road once more.

“It was rather a fright, yes. But there’s a cure for that.”

“I don’t –“

David slid his hand underneath James’ hair, cradling the back of the other’s neck.

“Tell me true, if you weren’t scared, you’d come to my bed.”

“I –“ James paused, then sighed. “Yes.”

David leaned in, dizzy with the scent of his desired one, brushing his lips against a soft earlobe. He knew he barely had to speak and the other would hear him _perfectly_.

“Then don’t be afraid, sweet thing. I won’t let anything bad happen to you.”

 _It’s already happened_ , James thought, but nodded and kept driving.

Rick stood at the window of his room. He couldn’t see the moon from that particular vantage point but the night was awash in silvery glow. He heard the howling plain enough and that was enough to make him open another bottle of wine, despite his better judgment. He thought of the previous weekend, they’d all gone into Nice to have dinner with Bob, then out on a crawl. Having Roger glare at him all night was awful but it was better than being alone.

“The Ruin of Wright,” his nemesis quipped, sneering from behind a glass as the other tried to disappear into the furniture. He had always been quiet, and Roger had always picked at him for being merely what he was.

He knew he was too distant…his heart was elsewhere, or nowhere, having been shattered. The failure of all his emotional connections was a terrifying thing to contemplate, it was much easier to drink and brood and continue to say nothing. He’d said very little for years now, because no matter what he did say he was unsure of it all.

Then _she_ had come along and offered him a way to forget it all: the pain, the humiliation, the fear.

And he had never done such a willingly risky thing in his life…trust a strange young girl not to lead him off to his…

_…ruin._

Now he thought about her nearly every hour: slender and brunette and lovely just like Jules, but her face was a little more sharp-featured, almost –

Another howl, long and high under the moonlight.

Vulpine. That was the word, wasn’t it?

Rick left his room, crossed the courtyard to the studio, which was dark and deserted.

_Oh yes the boy wonder was spirited away tonight._

He hoped the two were safe, hoped everyone was safe, even Roger. For as much as Rick despised Roger now for thirteen years of bullying, he couldn’t say he _hated_ him, for how could one hate someone so determined and imaginative? And yet, he wondered what Roger would do if he had to face down a wolf. He chuckled to himself as he walked back to his room, spying his reflection in the pool, shadowy hang-dog musing.

_He’d run, if it came to that. If it came to violence he’d cower. Nothing else could shut him up._

He tried to read, he drank more wine, he put on his headphones to drown out that eerie howling which stifled every other noise. Because it seemed to speak to him, the keening cry of longing. Rick listened to Miles Davis and tried to imagine some other life, one in which he was not trapped by misery and beholden to an opportunistic machine.

James was glad the room was dark, he didn’t want David to see his face. He didn’t want to see his own face for that matter, which he imagined looked pained and guilty and even fearful.

_What am I doing?_

Purely rhetorical…he knew. _Losing my mind, gaining -_

 _That_ was the true question. What was there, truly, to be gained from all this? It was something beyond their reckoning, he mused, even as the entire enterprise loomed over them like a austere monolith. It became easier, as the months passed, to actually imagine the titular character of the narrative, and it was not Pink. 

It was the wall itself.

“David –“

“Mmm.” Sleepy murmur, slurred with wine and hormonal satisfaction.

“I don’t want to drive right now.” James looked over at the clock on the bedside table, it was after one AM.

“Hmm.” The other turned over and pulled him close. “Then stay till it gets light.”

“Yes, I will.”

But he couldn’t sleep, not just yet. His eyes adjusted to the gloom and he looked at the cherubic face next to him, smoothed in slumber, beautiful no matter the circumstance. Just when he thought he might be able to close his eyes, the faintest echo of something pinged his brain and he sat up, tensed, beginning to sweat, suddenly shamed again at the situation. David snored on and James curled into a ball, his forehead on his knees, as the sound grew louder, the proximity between that thing and himself 

_You and your **lover** , why don’t you say it?_

too close.

James almost shouted. _Stop!_ His consciousness never let him forget his ambivalence, taunting him with the truth of his feelings.

The distance shortening. The barriers dissolving. The lines smudged, then erased.

Howling. A cry of anguish across the miles, through the night. And it would not cease.

James forced himself to lie down once more. It could not get at them, whatever it was. The house was shut tight. He turned onto his side and moved as close as he could to David without actually touching him. He focused on the sound of his beloved’s breathing, even as the howling grew near – so near at one point he thought whatever it was must have been right outside the villa – and willed himself to stillness, if not calm.

But it seemed to speak to him, the sound. It said _Isn’t it good to be lost in the wood?_ And just before sleep overtook him James saw David’s face in the moonlight and his expression was hungry, he smiled. But this was not the smile his employee knew.

Then the mouth opened wide, and he fell into the abyss.

“Did no one sleep then?” Roger demanded, looking at the crowd in the control room. Everyone, save Phil, looked tired and annoyed and guilty. Roger was glad he could not say the same, he’d slept like the dead. When David came to pick him up he merely grunted a greeting and remained silent during the drive to the studio. Roger filled the space with various voiced musings, not truly caring whether David was listening, it was a way for him to work out ideas.

“Couldn’t you hear the dogs?” Rick asked quietly. He was chain-smoking and clutching a cup of tea.

“Dogs?”

“Wild dogs, or a wolf,” James elaborated. “Seemed to howl all night.”

“Did you hear it?” Roger asked Phil.

Phil shrugged. “Had the telly on, usually can’t hear anything over that.”

“I didn’t hear anything which shouldn’t be there,” Roger said after a moment. “And certainly Bob couldn’t have heard it all the way in Nice.”

The object of his gibe put his hand over his eyes. “Rog, we can hear you just fine, no need to be so strident.”

“Tie one on again, did you?”

“When I’m off the clock it’s none of your fucking business what I do.”

“You’re so rarely _on_ the clock, dear, that I can’t help but be concerned.”

Bob scowled, which only deepened the effect of his debauched appearance. There was an air of hijinks to this enterprise, away from home and out of sight of anyone who might be inclined to watch them. Even Steve was back in London, battling Norton Warburg with his army of solicitors, while Griff and Arthur minded Brit Row and the group of artisans Roger had gathered together to help bring _The Wall_ to three-dimensional actuality labored away on stage plans and props and films. 

But this place seems to encourage things other than industry.

As The Three Egos commenced another heated discussion regarding song structure, James motioned to Phil, nodding his head toward the exit.

“Where are you going?” Roger demanded.

“To let the staff know we’re expecting a shipment within a day or so, and then I thought I might have a piss,” James replied, in the same mild-mannered inflection he used for nearly every utterance, therefore giving his sarcasm greater impact. Roger stared him down for a moment as the other smiled slightly, then turned back to the conversation. Phil followed James down the hall then out the backdoor to the patio area.

“Oh he’s in rare form today,” he remarked, reaching for his sunnies. “Aren’t we going in the wrong direction?”

“Jac showed this to me yesterday,” James said, walking around the pool then over to a door in the ground near the shed used to store various supplies. He wrenched it open and peered within.

“Wot izzit?”

“It’s a storage tank. For water, but it’s been empty a good while now.” 

James climbed down the ladder and walked around the space. It was about as large as the control room but deeper, taller. The structure entire was a shade of what he imagined to be battleship gray, though he could spy rust in some spots on the floor.

“The metal makes for a great echo in here.”

Phil looked doubtful. “Looks rather bleak and grimy.”

“I think it would be good to use as a chamber, so help me rig it up then.”

“Can we run cable all the way out here?”

James looked up at his colleague, smirking. “And you call yourself a tech!”

“Is that wot they told you? I’m the purveyor of exotic livestock, is wot I am. Dunno nuthin’ ‘bout no technical rubbish.”

James snickered as he climbed the ladder back into daylight.

“You won’t duck out of it, Philthy. As if I could get anything useful from that lot.”

Phil nodded. “Awright kiddo, no need for tears.”

James pretended to throw Phil into the tank. The other clowned but then stopped short with a strange look.

“Wot’s wrong?”

“Just had a thought, for god’s sake don’t tell Rog ‘bout this or next thing you know he’ll be wanting to lock someone up in it!”

James put his hands on his hips, chuckling and looking down into the gloom.

“If I didn’t think I could use it I would have already chucked Bob in there y’know.”

They had a good laugh, making sure that when they returned to the studio their expressions were once more impassive and neutral.

James generally preferred the second half of his day…even as there was an unnatural stillness to the night. It was particularly strange to cross the courtyard around one or two AM and hear absolutely nothing but the sound of his own footsteps.

But there was peace once The Three Egos had departed and he was left with Phil and Rick, as Nick had already pulled stakes and gone off to bunk at L’Ousteroun. James thought of other projects, other studios, where he might work all night on a mix, quietly plying his trade and losing himself in considerations of sound. He set up the mics for the keyboards, Phil helping him run some level checks, then slotted the tape and waited for Rick to come in, drinking a Coke and reading a month-old copy of _Melody Maker_.

“Didya need me then?” Phil inquired. “Was gonna catch a Clint Eastwood flick on the telly.”

“How does The Man With No Name sound _en français_?”

“Very grumpy.”

James snickered, then suddenly looked up with a frown. “Did you hear that?”

Phil tilted his head and pursed his lips. “Oh. Rather far away though…if it weren’t so quiet I doubt I _could_ hear it.”

“But you do hear it. The dogs.”

“Is it? Thought it was a wolf.”

“Wild dogs would be the more logical supposition.”

“Nothing _logical_ ‘bout this, kid. We’re in France, not the steppes of Russia in the dead of winter!”

James shrugged. “It is rather wild here, if you think ‘bout it. Mayhap a different sort of wilderness.”

“Too late for philosophy,” Phil countered, stifling a yawn.

A chuckle. “On the contrary, long nights are perfect for pondering one’s place in the universe.”

“My place is in His Nibs’ pocket, though it’s getting rather crowded with you there too.”

James felt himself blushing. “Have to tend to _all_ of them, y’know.”

“Well I’m off then, don’t bother me, right?”

“Piss off, Philthy.”

“Likewise, Whiz Kid.”

James continued to read, though his concentration had already been disturbed by what he could hear…and the sound was growing nearer. There were no other sounds in the general ambient space to remind him he was not alone and finally the illusion of solitude was too much, he left the studio and crossed the courtyard, looking for Rick. He knocked on the other’s door, hearing what seemed to be a scratching sound.

“Rick? It’s James, are you ready to have a play?”

The sound suddenly stopped, and James put his ear to the door. He thought he could hear breathing, as if Rick were asleep, but there was something else. A faint creak of the wooden floor, an exhaled breath, not from sleep.

_Someone’s in there with him?_

James closed his eyes and focused his attention, scarcely breathing himself. He heard it again, just the tiniest shift of weight upon the floor, someone trying to move very quietly from the center of the room towards the window on the other side. He reached into the pocket of his jeans and slowly pulled out his keys, palming the master key the owner had given him so he could have access to the electrical shed and other storage rooms, but the key opened every door in the facility. Another breath, then he slid it into the lock and with one fluid motion opened the door.

A blur of movement, then a shadowy figure pushed at the window, throwing it open. 

“Stop!” James shouted, trying to move as fast as whatever it was.

But it was gone. Leaving behind the stink of something rotten.

James turned from the window and looked at the floor. Clumps of dirt formed a trail to the bed, where Rick lay seemingly deep asleep, unaware of the disturbance. There was a smudge on his cheek. James got down on his haunches and dabbed at it with a finger.

It appeared to be blood.

Then Rick’s eyes fluttered open, and his expression was one of child-like bewilderment.

“James? Did I fall asleep? Don’t recall lying down. Came in here to change my shirt.”

“You were sleeping, yes.”

“Sorry. Must have been dreaming. Thought I was…somewhere else.”

“Are you all right? We don’t have to record tonight if you’re not up to it.”

“No I’m fine. Don’t want to be alone, actually.”

“Yes I know exactly what you mean.” James stood up, waiting for Rick to comment on the dirty floor, the open window, the scent in the air. He remained silent, merely sliding into a pair of sandals and walking towards the door. It was so strange James found himself unwilling to elaborate on what he had seen.

_A second time, even._

James’ position dictated that he normally waited for a stated command, his natural reticence was prized by his employers. They entered the studio and Rick sat before the bank with the Hammond and the synths in the live room and stared at the keys for a time. James busied himself with cueing the tapes and setting the faders but the silence stretched to nearly ten minutes and he found himself blurting something out just to move things along.

“Want to try your cans for the playback, then? I’ll adjust the volume for you,” he inquired over the talkback mic.

Rick frowned. “Not yet. Need to ponder it a bit. Can you fetch some wine please?”

“Of course.”

James did not consider it a strange request, Rick seemed to play better with a drink or two in him, disconnecting his inherent painfully shy demeanor.

“Did you want me to lock the door while I’m gone?”

Rick quirked an eyebrow, what might have passed for a wry grin on anyone else made his lips twitch.

“Why?”

James felt himself blushing, but that same sense of surreal unease made the hairs on the back of his neck prickle as though a breath stirred them, or the touch of 

_fingertips_

_a hand through his hair, held fast in the grip of passion, nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, not even from himself_

a ghost.

“Dunno wot’s out there,” he said, though he knew that wasn’t much of a justification. It was true in any situation, not an exact inference of what they all seemed to know. _Something_ was out there, and it appeared to be waiting for a chance to get in.

“Come to think of it, need a piss,” Rick declared, and followed him out again. James went over to the kitchen and let himself into the wine cellar, bringing up a two-year-old bottle of the Miraval, the wine they normally imbibed with meals, extracting the cork and bringing along a single glass for his employer. The studio was empty when he returned and this time he felt too spooked to wait. Checking the toilet, Rick’s room, the kitchen and dining room, the common sitting room, revealed the absence of the one he sought. He walked out to the area in the back of the complex where all those in residence parked their cars, and Rick’s sedan was still in its’ usual place.

James waited half an hour in the control room, fingers drumming upon the console, heart hammering within his chest.

He’d been through this before: usually there was always one person in a band who was chronically late, or had a tendency not to return after a lunch or dinner break. Sometimes he’d hunted them down, patiently persistent and slightly stern, but determined not to let any session he was involved in descend into chaos.

But the Floyd made their own rules, he was learning. So for someone to decide **not** to record wasn’t necessarily cause for alarm but something strange was going on and of course he had to consider how it extended to everyone, including himself. 

James put his hand on the phone, his tongue sliding across his bottom lip in consideration. David would likely laugh at him, insist he come over, and James was loathe to leave the room, never mind the compound. He sighed, and there was the sound again – faint and far away – but the sharp edge of the howl pricked his psyche, causing a shudder.

_Where are you? Why did you just disappear? You could have said you didn’t want to play tonight and I would have let you be. Not as if I have a choice._

Oh there was a choice, he corrected himself. Just one you don’t want to make.

He found himself knocking on Phil’s door, which was opened by a red-eyed sleepy-looking inhabitant.

“Wot now?”

“Are you loaded?”

Phil smirked. “Just a smidge. Unlike you, some people actually go _off the clock_ , y’know.”

“Rick’s gone.”

“Gone where?”

“Dunno. Went to fetch a bottle of plonk and he bloody disappeared on me.”

“Mayhap he remembered he had a date.”

Against his will James found himself snickering as he stepped into the room.

“I know he has a reputation – they _all_ have a reputation, but – I swear it wasn’t more than five minutes and he was _gone_. **And** he didn’t drive away.”

Phil shrugged. “Don’t think we have to call the gendarmes, kid.”

“Not saying we should, necessarily, but -”

“See this is why you **need** a little hammering. Your brain never shuts off, does it?”

_Sure it does. Just can’t tell you when, or why._

The extension in the room began ringing in a shrill fashion.

“See? That might be him now for all we know. Hullo? Oh…yeah, sure.”

Phil handed the receiver to James. “His Nibs.”

“Yes David?”

“Roger just rang me, said he and Bob had dinner in Vence and he saw Rick with some girl. Didn’t you say you two were recording tonight?”

“Planned to, but he disappeared on me. How long ago did Roger see Rick?”

“Dunno. At least an hour, I suspect.”

James suddenly felt light-headed. _What the bloody hell is going on?_

“Well now that you’re free –“

“Phil and I were going to watch a film.”

Phil paused in the midst of changing channels on the television and raised an eyebrow.

“Is that code for you can’t come right now?”

“You could interpret it as such, of course.”

“Well I suppose we’ll just have to scheme for tomorrow. Sleep sound, dear thing.”

_I might never, ever, again._

“Y’have some scotch in your hoard, Philthy?” James asked as he hung up the phone.

“Hmm.” Phil opened a cupboard and examined the bottles within. “Guess we must have killed it last weekend.”

“Well I have some, thank god.”

“So you get a night off, wot’s so terrible ‘bout that?”

“For every night we _don’t_ work now, it means that many more nights _I’ll_ have to work later on.”

“But that’s wot you do any road, don’t see why you’re so cross.”

_If I told you, you’d think I was -_

“Don’t like having my time wasted, is all.”

Phil shrugged and sat down to roll a joint. “C’mon then, if you’re coming.”

“In a mo.”

Walking down the hall to his room, there was another sound, this one far more disturbing. A clanging, out in the courtyard.

_Are we fucking under siege then?_

James looked out a nearby window; the courtyard was dark even with the benefit of moonlight. Another distinct _clang_ and then a _crash_ and it could only mean one thing.

_But I locked it. Jac told me to lock it because something **might** fall in, something_

Like an animal.

_I locked the hatch, I know I did._

The echo. He knew that echo, it was very distinct. He even knew where it was, trying to scramble up the ladder, falling down to the floor.

“Should I?” he whispered to himself, thinking of summoning Phil and grabbing a torch, going to see what it was, once and for all. But what if –

_What if it’s **not** a dog? Or even a wolf?_

Because he knew what Tante had said, the thing which none of them had spoken of thus far.

_Loup-garou._

Then James heard what sounded like a whimper, but very faint. An ambivalence stronger than the one he struggled with daily seized him, he put a hand to the latch and unlocked it, pushing the window open just slightly. The same smell from Rick’s room assaulted his nostrils, stronger than before.

_It’s suffering._

_You don’t know what it is. It could be a ruse._

_It can’t get at us, it can’t get out of the tank._

_You don’t know that, Jamie boy. Not for certain._

“James?”

Phil was standing in the doorway of his room, looking perplexed.

“Wot you doin’ then? The film already started!”

“Have you a torch?”

“Think so…why?”

“Just grab it and c’mere then.”

“Bloody Christ,” Phil muttered as he rummaged around his room, but then came up to James holding a large police-model flashlight he had nicked from security at a venue during the ‘77 tour.

“Wot –“

“C’mon. But don’t say a word. Try not to breathe if y’can manage it.”

Phil made to say something further and James clapped his hand over the other’s mouth swiftly.

“I mean it!” James whispered emphatically.

Phil rolled his eyes in annoyance but remained silent. James opened the door to the courtyard as quietly as he could manage, and they stepped outside where the silence was thicker than the smell. Phil covered his mouth and nose, strangling a reflexive cough, and James froze, putting his hand on Phil’s chest to stop his progress as well. Phil recovered and they continued on past the pool over to the tank. The door was wide open and James’ heart felt as though it had slammed against his ribs. The sounds of attempted escape had ceased, but the smell was overpowering.

“Something’s in there,” James whispered to Phil. “Stand clear while I shine the torch.”

“But –“

James shook his head violently then walked towards the space, twice as dark as the night overhead. He aimed the beam against the far wall, and the light reflected wetly upon a large dark smear. He silently counted to ten then shifted the light down towards the floor. More splotches on the metal, like footprints but smudged. He realized he _wasn’t_ breathing as the lack of oxygen made him dizzy, nearly stumbling towards the precipice before he was ready. He inhaled through his nose despite the smell, forcing himself to remain still, but the hand holding the flashlight trembled visibly. Phil took a step forward and James started, swinging the beam toward the other, when another crash sounded and they both went to the edge and looked down. James shone the light on the figure at the bottom of the tank.

“Bloody hell!” Phil exclaimed. “Rick? Rick are you alright?!”

“Oh god it’s _on me_!”

“Did you hurt yourself?” Phil asked from the other side of the door. Rick was in the communal lavatory cleaning himself off, but refused to let the duo assist him, so they stood out in the hallway giving each other puzzled looks, though Phil was of the opinion that James wasn’t so much confused as frightened. He had turned pale under the normal glow of the slight olive cast to his skin, causing his hair to look darker than it really was. Spots of blush appeared in his cheeks and he bit his reddened lower lip.

“I’m –“ Rick began, then let out another grunt of disgust.

“Are you sure you don’t need us to help you?” James called out, and the silence which followed was answer enough. Rick turned on the tap in the sink and Phil moved closer to the other.

“You look like you know something.”

James immediately looked guilty, flushing brightly. “W-why d’ya say that?”

“Because I’m not dense, y’know. You weren’t particularly surprised to see Rick in the tank.”

Yet they had both stood there stunned, James gasping – as once again he had been holding his breath – to find a dazed and disheveled Rick on the floor of the tank, his clothes heavily stained with what appeared to be blood. But other than extreme disorientation Rick appeared to be unharmed: no bones broken, no cuts or scrapes or even bruises.

“Well he had disappeared, hadn’t he?”

“Why was it open? I saw you close the hatch myself.”

James shrugged, studying his trainers. “Not the only one with a key.”

“This is Philthy yer talkin’ to, kid, don’t feed me the bollocks!”

James looked up, still flushed and now visibly upset. “I’ll elaborate later! Can’t say wot I’m thinking in front of the client.”

Phil’s expression was shocked. “James, it isn’t like that now, c’mon! We’re a family.”

Despite his usual reserve, James chortled in a cynical fashion. “Right. The very _best_ sort of family, always aiming for the jugular.”

Phil then shrugged, looking somewhat helpless and scratching his beard. “Well wot does one say to _that_?”

“You say you’ll get off my fucking back for the moment, that’s wot.”

“Fine!” But Phil was now scared as well, because in the eight months he’d known the other he had never seen James so upset. He was, in fact, beginning to wonder if the other ever became angry…and now he had his answer.

Which meant something was wrong. Very very _wrong_.

Rick opened the door. “James, you must phone Rog for me. Please.”

“Wot’s the trouble?”

“Just…see if he’s alright.”

“But –“

“ _Please_.” The door was then shut once more.

Phil and James eyed once another again with silent skittishness.

“Awful lot of blood on ‘im.”

“Yes. Wanna flip for phone duty?”

“He asked you.”

“I’m asked to do bloody _everything_ ‘cept play the damn songs. And that too, on occasion.”

Phil made a wry grimace. “And not half bad, you are. But Rog would just hang up on me, says I’m a loyalist and therefore suspect.”

James sighed. “Why is it always a question of sides? Why can’t we just _get on with it_ , then? The sooner finished the sooner they can stop fighting.”

“But that’s the way of it. Even in a moment when they all might be laughing, one of them isn’t laughing _with_ the others, but _at_ them.”

James leaned on the wall, pushing his hair from his face in a contemplative motion.

“S’pose that’s Roger, eh?”

Phil shrugged. “Not always. Depends on the day.”

James went to his room to place the call, hoping the other wasn’t in a particularly sarcastic mood. Carolyne answered, chiding him for ringing so late. James apologized, explaining he was conveying a message for Rick.

“Rick? Really?!”

“Yes. If Roger is available for a moment, please.”

A long pause, James could hear the voices of the man and woman of the house, faint but insistent.

“What is it, James?”

“Rick asked me to phone. Said he wanted to know if you were alright.”

“Me?” the other sputtered. “Do I sound as though I’m not alright?”

“No, of course not. As I say, he asked me to phone.”

“But why?”

“I don’t know what prompted the inquiry, Roger. I won’t keep you.”

“Mmm. See you in the morning, then.”

“Good night.”

James was thankful the other did not see fit to interrogate him. He sighed again, ready to fall back on the bed and pass out but imagined the right thing to do was to go back and check on Rick. He lay down with his hand over his eyes, just for a moment, then heard someone in the hall. When he sat up, it was at the sight of David in the doorway.

“What are you –“

“I decided I didn’t want to wait.”

James put his face in his hands, the universal gesture of exhaustion, then looked up again. “You picked a hell of a night for _that_!”

“Wot happened? Phil is standing outside the lav saying Rick got hurt?”

“Not hurt, not exactly, but – something _happened_ to him, that’s for certain.”

“Wot does that mean?”

“We found him in the storage tank, blood all over him.”

David turned pale, with a look of shocked disbelief.

“Does he need a doctor?”

“Says he doesn’t, but it’s rather difficult to tell. I think you should talk to him, try to find out what happened. He seems to think Roger was involved, somehow. Had me ring him to ask if he was alright. And I can’t help but think –“

“Wot?”

James shook his head. “No, it’s too preposterous.”

David fixed him with a direct sky-blue stare, those eyes which had enthralled the other from the moment they met.

“That _thing_ we saw, is that what you mean?”

“Yes. I’ve been hearing it every bloody night.”

“As if our lives weren’t complicated enough, now there’s _this_.”

“There’s the rub, don’t even know what _it_ is, to assign it such responsibility.”

“We’re cursed, we must be.”

David walked out of the room and James stood there, hands on his hips, listening for evidence of that which had been spoken of so obliquely. Perversely all he could hear were those sounds considered normal for that time of night: birdsong, crickets, the occasional frog.

_Oh **now** you clear off, eh? Well you can just stay gone then._

But he feared it wasn’t as simple as all that. Nothing seemed to be, in this place and time…events weaving a net of complication he might never extricate himself from.

_6 June_  
_Why can’t I remember? Am I losing my mind? And why do I think it’s better not to remember?_

Rick opened the door of his room and found David on the other side, attempting to look solicitous.

“I told you I don’t want to discuss it!” Rick exclaimed.

“Can I come in, dear? Or are you going to throw a fit for everyone to hear?”

_Of anyone, he’s the one -_

Rick shrugged and moved aside. David entered and sat on the bed.

_God, why do you hate me so?_

But he didn’t consider himself religious enough to mean anything other than satire.

“Nearly a fortnight now, you’ve been shut away. Did you think _no one_ would notice?”

“Notice, certainly. Care? Not particularly.”

“But James is worried ‘bout you. Says you might have seen the same thing we have.”

_I’ve seen **you**._

Flashes came to him, through eyes not quite his own. The deserted house, the beautiful girl, the dark wood. And on the other side of the wood, more houses. One in which two came together in secretive passion so overwhelming it threatened to rend the very fabric of their existence. One in which someone paced and prowled and longed to tear apart a soul.

 _His_ soul.

The terror of it all…he could not recall if he viewed Roger through the eyes of the prey or the predator. Because that meant

_danger_

he wasn’t in his right mind, not at all.

“I dunno wot you mean.”

“I think you do. There is _something_ out there, something wandering Berre-les-Alpes and it appears to be stalking _us_. My question is _why_?

“Well,” Rick paused, lighting a cigarette and attempting to dissemble, “I don’t know anything different. We all hear it howling, every night.”

“I can tell when you’re lying,” David said, rising to his feet. “You can’t look me in the eye.”

Rick attempted, just then, to do so. But the gaze of the other was like something sharp slicing him, scalpel-sharp dissecting him to find his secrets, the core of his loathing, the seat of his despair. 

“Why don’t you just continue to ignore me…you’ve all _been_ ignoring me for months now, so go on then! Don’t presume that your help will make anything better, you don’t have that power!” 

Those eyes of sky, they turned cold…a cloud crawling across the sun, and the light went out.

Much as it has always done, leaving him groping for empty comfort and finding familiar failure.

_8 June_  
_I think he knows. He hasn’t come, but I know he wants to. When I have to be among them, his eyes move to me immediately. But where has she gone, why can’t I find her now? The house is empty, there’s no trace of her in the village. But the dogs, I can still hear the dogs, but further away, like they’re staying away now._

_Something has happened, if only I could remember._

Sunlight was a curative…the full light of natural disclosure. They had begun to seek the daylight even in the midst of focused activities: opening the windows and the outer door of the studio area, serenading the countryside with a very dark sort of musical narrative. It was in answer to that silence which, despite the seeming return of normal nocturnal activity, remained over the environs…a calm which belied the activity behind the walls both figurative and literal.

David and Phil were working out a configuration of effects for a particular take so James took a moment to stretch his legs, ambling around the swimming pool, opening the door of the tank and looking into its’ dark depths – as he had taken to doing since the night he and Phil had found Rick inside – then closing and securing it once more, this time with the additional aid of a padlock and chain obtained from a locksmith in Nice.

“James.”

He looked up, startled, to see Rick standing there. He looked hungover, the storm-blue eyes shadowed and squinting in the glaring light of a mid-June day.

“Did you need me?”

It had become a standard question for any of them, their dependence on him ever-evolving and subconsciously encouraged by his willingness to be exploited.

“I wondered if we might have a chat at lunch.”

James wondered if that meant having lunch elsewhere and Rick quickly revealed his supposition to be correct.

“Le Rouret isn’t too far from here, imagine you can drive it in a matter of minutes. They’ve a café.”

“Certainly.”

The trip was completed in silence, save the purr of the engine and the drifting disembodied voices on the radio, their speech all the more eerie for being in a different language, though James possessed a passable fluency in French thanks to his Swiss boarding school education. David liked to tease him by murmuring phrases guaranteed to make him blush, with no one else in the room the wiser for his admittance.

Once at the café James ordered for them both while Rick sat wreathed in smoke and studying his glass of mineral water as if it contained an augury.

“How are you feeling?”

Rick let out a huff, trimming ash and shifting in his seat. “No need to fret. I wanted to talk to you –“

The waiter brought wine and their first course but Rick sat stonily, continuing to smoke. James went ahead and ate, already familiar with Rick’s culinary habits, or lack thereof.

“ – about Roger.”

James set down his spoon, surprised but trying not to show it. A host of theories had been circling his brain for the last hour, but an inquiry about Roger was not among them.

“Okay.”

A paltry response, but his brain had locked up. He began eating again, hoping Rick would talk for a while and fill up the awkward space between them.

“As you’re aware, Roger and I, we don’t get on. We never have, really. Most of the time it’s been a mutual effort to ignore one another as best we can. But I won’t bore you with the history, it’s not your place to mend the fences, just prop them up.”

James nodded.

“But lately, he’s been most peculiar. Being nasty in front of everyone, and pleasant otherwise. He tends to appear, rather unexpectedly, to talk.”

James tried not to look incredulous, but it was a bizarre notion. He couldn’t even picture it, Roger and Rick having a normal conversation. But then again all he knew was their dysfunction: Roger pointedly ignoring Rick any time he was a part of the discussion at Brit Row, Rick cowering whenever he was a target of Roger’s gibes, the tension pervading every moment they were in the room together.

“I can…well imagine that might seem strange.”

“The night you and Phil found me, in that tank, Roger and I were in Vence. At least that’s what I remember.”

James swallowed and set down his utensil again. “I had heard –“

“What did you hear?”

“Before I answer that, can you please tell me what you recall?”

“Roger had asked me to dinner. He drove us to Vence, I figured I could take a taxi back. We were on our way…and then, I vaguely remember being elsewhere, not where we meant to go. And then, well, you know the rest.”

_No I don’t know any of this, that’s the trouble._

“So the last thing you recall was us finding you in the tank.”

“That’s right.” Rick sipped at his soup.

“It is the complete opposite of what **I** remember, which is why I asked.”

Rick turned pale, pausing mid-sip. “It is?”

“You had dinner with us that night, Phil and I. Then you agreed to record, and we went back to the studio to set up. I came to fetch you and you said you must have fallen asleep. But there was something in your room.”

“What you said you saw before.”

“I didn’t mention it to you.”

“Dave did. What…was it?”

_’Don’t say anything, James.’ Why do none of you simply do what you say you will?_

“I was driving David home one evening and…it…ran across the road. It looked like a dog but it walked on two legs and on four legs. It smiled. It was the most ghastly thing I’ve ever seen, I keep dreaming ‘bout it. It smiled at us and then it ran away into the woods.”

Rick nodded and stirred his soup, again looking at it rather than his companion.

“I met a girl, here in the village. She reminded me of Jules, so pretty. We were –“

Rick shrugged, and James thought the gesture amusingly Gallic but simply nodded in response.

“Things became terribly strange. I can’t…really explain but I think it’s all to do with her somehow. And Roger.”

“How so?”

“Because in some of the…pieces…of my memory, he’s there. And so is _that thing_.”

James raised his eyebrows, waiting for Rick to elaborate. But there was only a searching stare, the English way of elaboration which might finally lead to a strangled gasp once the other apprehended the implications of said silence. So James considered what he was meant to infer and his mind protested. _We’ve all gone fully mad, haven’t we?_

“I –“

“You don’t have to say anything. I just wanted someone to know. Someone who wouldn’t immediately attack me for thinking such a thing.”

“I’d never –“

“And that’s what we like ‘bout you, James. You quietly accept everything and get on with it. We’ve all reached the point where we can’t accept _anything_ anymore. Yet we’re expected to get on with it. And so we do, but it’s rather like limping along with spikes driven through one’s feet.”

The violence of the image gave him pause, but to consider any of what was being calmly discussed in full daylight over _soupe et poissons_ might have caused James to make an admission of his own, and that was madness of an absolute kind.

_Tu parle avec facile?_

_Peut-etre._

It was their private joke, one of a few. They were sitting on the upstairs balcony of David’s rented villa in Saint-Jeannet, hoping to catch a stray breeze, but the night was hot and thick and silent again. They were quietly getting wrecked and not particularly caring whether something was out there or not, perhaps waiting for a moment of vulnerability.

“So how can a man be in two places at once?” David asked, a faint slur to his words. He took an inhale of a spliff and passed it to James.

“If I knew that I’d have the bloody Noble Prize in Physics!” Equally intoxicated, James stumbled over the word _physics_ before enunciating it in an exaggerated fashion.

“So y’don’t believe him.”

“I believe what I saw, what **I** saw,” James insisted, taking a drag and letting out the smoke with a cough. “Gah, where is Philthy getting this shite from, it’s awful!”

“Bob brought it in the other day.”

“Well no wonder!” James handed it back. “Probably scored it from some unwashed prostie in an alleyway.”

“You’re a right bitch in your cups, dear.”

“With all due respect –“

“Yes I know. But seriously now, Rick is claiming that girl is really a werewolf or some such?”

A sober spike of realization. _He’s ignoring what I **actually** said._

“Possibly. He claims she led him to a deserted house and did strange things to him.”

David smirked. “Sounds like a typical night on the razzle.”

“What did Tante tell you ‘bout the _loup-garou_?”

“There’s an old legend, of a beast which walked like a man and had its’ way with the local woman. Didn’t kill them, usually, but might. Didn’t say anything ‘bout a woman being the culprit of mischief.”

“And they just live with it then?”

“They can never catch it. It preys upon the weak and defenseless.”

James thought it a fair description of Rick, even as he felt a bit uncharitable for the opinion.

“I wonder if Roger isn’t correct…he’s not in his right mind.”

David looked at his companion, surprised and cynical.

“Are any of us, then?”

Another drink of wine, though it was giving James a headache now.

“No. But this is something serious.”

“That’s Roger’s answer to everything. Accusing someone of madness.”

James felt a hiccup wanting to come to the surface. The others had darkly, obliquely blamed Roger for more than a few faults in their history and James tried very hard to ignore the implications, then as now.

“What is it then?” he demanded, the wine disconnecting his normal calm. “What is it which causes a man to appear covered in blood and with no recollection of how he came to be that way? Frankly, I’m sodding mystified as to why the police haven’t shown up!”

David blanched and rapped on the wooden floor. “Bite your tongue! We’re already in dire straits as it is!”

“As if I’ll talk! You know I won’t. But I find myself growing more terrified by the day.”

David set down his glass and gently did the same for James, then put his arms around his coveted one, brushing his nose against the other’s.

“I won’t let anything happen to you.”

“You’re terribly gallant, but –“

As always, all protests were silenced with a kiss…a kiss gratefully accepted and returned with equal passion. They lay down upon the wooden floor, hands groping under garments, mouths fused, breathing into one another in a desperate fashion which might appear…in the moonlight…to be madness. In the distance, the faintest whine of a lonely creature, calling to his or her kind, could be heard, but no reply was forthcoming.

“So we’re still going to use this, then?” Phil asked, looking askance at his colleague who was below him, literally.

James looked up at Phil, framed by the blue sky, a slant of sunlight over his right shoulder. The other wore denim cut-offs and nothing else. He had a very nice tan, the result of weekends _dans la plage_. The summer was almost over, and James realized he’d done very little to simply enjoy it. Even the idylls with David were fraught with considerations of guilt and a vague terror.

“Yes dear. If something is going to attack us in broad daylight then perhaps we’d at least see it coming.”

“Can’t just use one of the Binsons to get an echo?”

“That’s cheating.” James climbed out of the tank, having set up a monitor and a couple of microphones inside. “Creating an effect is just as good as getting one out of a box.”

“Bloody boffins,” Phil muttered, going to check the cabling.

“Right, when you come back go in there so we can do a level check.”

Phil followed the cables back to the studio, checking to ensure they were grounded and connected correctly, and not touching any standing water or other environmental hazard. He walked back to the tank and fixed James with a grimace.

“Guthrie, you’re off your bloody trolley if you think I’m going in _there_!”

James folded his arms across his chest and smirked. “Didn’t peg you for a superstitious ninny, Philthy.”

“Sod off! Nothin’ _superstitious_ ‘bout what we saw, kid.”

“Don’t want to waste the space, no matter _what_ happened. S’pose that makes me a tad cold-blooded then, hmm?”

They both began laughing at the macabre pun.

“Christ!” Phil descended the ladder. “Why’d I let you talk me into these things?”

“Because I’m ever so clever.”

“And modest…modest as the day is long!”

“Shut it!” James called over his shoulder as he returned to the control room. He turned on the talkback mic, which would broadcast over the monitor.

“Phil give me a close vox, there’s a good lad.”

Phil responded with the normal sound check string of words designed to test the clarity for a vocal level. At first James didn’t look at the gauges at all, merely closed his eyes and listened. The echo was rather tinny, it wasn’t what he’d heard when in the tank. He frowned.

“Take a step back and do it again.”

The other complied, and there it was…a deep roomy sort of sound, like a long enclosed hallway or being underwater, as sound travelled much better in that environment.

“Right then, that’s fine for now.”

“Are we gonna –“

A loud **BANG** nearly caused James to fall out of his chair.

“Phil, what happened?!”

The sound came again, this time there were several bangs and crashes and James’ mind immediately reverted to that night, it was the same sound. The sound of something trying to get out of the tank. He ran out into the courtyard, calling for the other. Phil was lying on the floor of the tank, one of the microphones had fallen on him. But the sound seemed to be coming from _underneath_ the tank, and all around it. James climbed down the ladder and knelt beside his colleague.

“Are you hurt?”

“Knocked me down! I was standing there, talking to you, and _something_ pushed me!”

“What?”

“Well if I knew, I woulda pushed back then!”

James laughed despite himself and Phil began laughing as well.

“Sure you’re okay? This stand isn’t a feather, y’know.”

“I’ve had worse. Ever tell you ‘bout when a sandbag knocked me cold during the ’75 tour?”

“Don’t recall that one.” James moved the mic stands to the other side of the space. “Let’s haul these up, see if anything is broken.”

“Me first, I’ve had quite enough of this experiment!”

Phil went up the ladder and James handed him the equipment until it was all out save the monitor.

“We’ll take that out later.” James disconnected the cables and threw them up, leaving the speaker inside. He came out and locked the hatch.

“Are we through then? Like to find my way to the bottom of a pint or six.”

“Isn’t it strange that no one else seemed to hear it? Certainly loud enough.”

“I think they heard, they just didn’t want to know. Don’t you feel like we’re being watched?”

He did _feel_ it, at that moment…the weight of scrutiny, although James couldn’t tell who or what was observing them.

_Whatever could I say to him? If you touch me again I swear I will –…what? There is nothing I could threaten him with that he would fear. And she told me this, though I already knew it. Then she said I could protect myself, but I would have to trust her._

_But it’s all gone wrong. Not just this, but…I cannot live with it. What I bring out in him._

“We’re sad, we’re so terribly sad, aren’t we?”

There it was: the probing question, softly-spoken as to penetrate his psyche, appeal to his empathy, which he kept hidden behind a wall likely rivaling the one Roger was building between himself and whoever opposed him.

Rick shrugged, watching the smoke from his cigarette slither in the drafty room, though it was so warm any movement of the air was welcome.

“Why do you keep on with this? Simply for revenge? Because if it is he doesn’t care.”

“There’s my point!” Roger exclaimed, reaching for his drink. “He **doesn’t** care, he has used us and discarded us, but without us he cannot stand.”

“You, y’mean. You don’t think he can go on without you.”

Rick could see Roger making a concerted effort **not** to respond as the other imagined he would…a self-aggrandizing jab.

“One has to prod him to do anything, save chasing the chickens.”

The evocation of a fox in the henhouse quickly led to another appropriate metaphor.

“I’m waiting for _her_. Why don’t you go home, Rog? Carolyne doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”

A scowl, but only for a moment. Rick found it amusing how much effort Roger was expending to be less than combative.

“I’m my own man.”

_Liar. You were **his** till you mucked it all up. And I never got to know what it would have been like, to be that kind of friend._

Another shrug. “It’s nothing to do with me, of course.”

“But it does, Rick, that’s what I’m trying to tell you. You’re the only one who could possibly understand what I’m feeling right now.”

_Abandoned. Heartbroken. Losing faith in whatever made life worth living._

“You’ve never been interested in whether or not I could relate to you.”

“Rick I’m **trying**

_To see, deeper than the night. To roam the miles, and not feel the effort. To hear, to smell, to touch and to taste the night completely, with preternatural sense._

_He tracked the scent, and the others followed reluctantly, straight to the obvious place. Looked in the window at two spooning on a sofa, one on his knees, bowing his dark head and servicing the other who looked faintly ridiculous with the benefit of added girth, even as his face retained the beauty of his youth…head thrown back, ecstatic and urging the other on with passionate profane urgency. Declarations of favor._

_His humanity had been subsumed within the dark magic and now it raged red and poisonous. His pride was more than wounded, it was **murdered** by this act of betrayal._

_Just before he would have climaxed, David pushed James onto his back and let his seed splatter the other upon groin and belly. Laid on top and wove his fingers through the other’s hair, biting at the neck and jaw, kissing repeatedly the mouth which he also probed with eager tongue. Ran his hands over flesh which bore a sheen of sweat, moaning and murmuring the name over and over. The other encircled that body which the observer knew so well, hands stroking and his expression so intense, as though he was close to tears._

_There were so many ways a man could destroy himself…and the observer knew this was a death knell…for everyone. Eleven years of fascination, collaboration, contention, lust, respect, envy, anger…_

_Especially anger._

_(How dare he give that bliss to someone else?)_

_Always the same reaction. His pain would not spare his pride and his response was ever tormented to think that someone – anyone – would prefer the love of another. And yet he knew he was riddled with faults and obviously flawed. But he **tried** , he kept trying to obtain the love he thought he might actually deserve._

_(But what if **this** is what you truly deserve? Betrayal, faithlessness.)_

_The odor of sex assaulted his now-perfect olfactory abilities, a scented taunt._

_(Look at him, the rutting lord of the manor and his faithful servant, who adores him so blindly.)_

_The others whined at him, the intimation clear._

_(Let us be away, out in the night, knowing what it is to be alive and free under the moon.)_

_But he had a lust now too. And it was going to be fulfilled._

…to understand!”

He kept his gaze blank, as the edges of Roger’s anger turned sharp enough

_to rend to tear to cut to gash_

“Besides, you know she’s not coming.”

“I don’t know any such thing!”

_to slit to slice to stab to slash_

A smirk…Rick could see the Roger he knew in that expression.

“Perhaps you don’t.”

A actual smile, then. A smile which could be considered very frightening in certain circumstances.

“Well we did it,” Phil proclaimed, raising a glass of champagne as they sat on the front steps of the studio…a ritual of farewell, as they had done the same at Britannia Row before departing to France. James acknowledged the toast, with a clink of glass and a long swallow. “Here’s to the bricklayers.”

“Who certainly did all the dirty work. Here’s to surviving this madness.”

Phil nodded. They drained their glasses and poured another round.

“D’ya think this place is haunted then?”

James pursed his lips, pondering. “I s’pose that’s as good an explanation as any. When I worked at The Manor with Runner, they say it’s haunted, but I never noticed anything strange. Then again, it was all very orderly, nobody fighting or wandering off only to return in a terrible state.”

“I must say, when I was here with Dave and the lads last year, nothing happened. Nothing out of the ordinary, that is. It was all very cozy and quick.”

“It could be anything…p’haps not even to do with Super Bear. I get the feeling it’s just _out there_.” James gestured with a sweep of his hand, towards the road and the fields and the mountains beyond.

Phil shrugged. “We’ll be away soon enough.”

James turned to his friend with a smirk. “Yes but, not away from _them_.”

“Sure we will, they’ll all be on hols for the month.”

James shook his head. “A brief stay of execution.”

Phil let out with a raucous chuckle. “Ah you’re a pisser! But we’re in, kid, so no sense in crying now.”

There were more than a few responses James could have given, but his inner wisdom told him instead to drink and to smile and to remain silent. A faint smile, it was, and as such could be interpreted in any number of ways. It was an acknowledgment of the vagaries of fate, a resignation in regards to the imperatives of the machine.

_Isn’t it good, to be lost in the wood?_


	3. fin

Super Bear was still in operation, though a long way from its’ previous identity as an enclave sought by rock stars who required a quiet obscure place to record. The owner’s grandson was running things now, and quite overjoyed to find even an old lion upon his doorstep. As the two conversed James went out to the courtyard and examined the hatch of the storage tank. The door had rusted shut and he supposed it was just as well.

Standing there, the past returned in painful immediacy. The trill of a nightingale sounded as the wind stirred the trees and the sky above was deep blue tinged with gold. He thought of people and events he’d tried to bury, even as his ongoing responsibilities meant that someone would need him to remember, to tell the tales and put the great works into perspective. To disclose and define the alchemy behind those recordings, he couldn’t help but think it was cheating somehow. It didn’t matter _how_ they were made, it only mattered that they were, and could exist for all time.

As for the rest…he was accustomed to his burden, lighter though it may be year by year. He missed Rick’s quicksilver smile and his soulfulness in playing, even a few chords carried the weight of his elusive charm. He missed Rick’s gentle nature, Rick’s shy demeanor (not so unlike his own), even the other’s silence was a presence.

James missed…the past…in specific ways, even as it continued to hang on in memory.

Lost in thought, he’d forgotten to listen and started at the touch of David’s hand upon his shoulder.

“Here’s my Whiz Kid.”

“What’s the word, then?”

“Phillippe doesn’t recall local legend, and Tante passed on a couple years back.”

“Well what could we expect to learn any road? You can’t definitively prove a legend!”

“So logical…you’ll never change, will you?”

“Not in that respect, thankfully.”

David smiled, and kept smiling until James gave up a smirk.

“Can we be getting back to Nice, please? It’ll be dark soon.”

David raised a perfectly-formed eyebrow. “Just a legend, hmm?”

“We don’t know. We’ll never know. We only have one side of the story and we’ll **never** hear the other, I wager.”

David looked up at the sky. “ _C’est vrai_.” He began walking towards the back of the complex. “Are you coming then?”

James sighed. “Don’t I always?”

A black dog ran across the road as they were making their way back to the A8 and they each silently resolved not to acknowledge it. In this, they followed the Code: _company men tell no tales_.

_I called it, meant to use it. Loose the wild terror upon him. I can’t believe I thought I could._

David sat in the back of a limousine as the vehicle crawled along the RFK Bridge, the accompanying sights familiar but not entirely ingrained. New York meant Roger to him now: the terminus of his ambition, so many stones he carried…figurative stones which weighed as much as their actualized counterparts. Every so often he would look at the carry-on bag on the seat beside him, and the contents which raised no scrutiny while in transit, but would hopefully send the recipient into a shock he might never recover from.

It was raining, traffic was nearly at a standstill. But he had time, if not patience.

Finally, wet dark asphalt shining in twin streetlights, the squelching cadence of passersby, the relentless pace of the New Yorker: always forward-moving. His pause upon the sidewalk in front of Roger’s building - looking up and up and up as if he could spy the other looking down - caused no end of disgruntled pedestrians.

 _I still prefer the country_ , David thought.

He stepped forward to the entrance and rang the bell. After a few moments a security guard opened the door. David had made certain to look into the camera mounted above the door, allowing for easier identification.

He did not know this man, but the man knew him.

“You’re not expected, Mr. Gilmour.”

 _Maybe I should have sent James after all._ But a sense of satisfaction would not be gained from such an decision.

“If Roger is not at home then I only need to deliver this, but for his eyes only.”

“Mr. Waters is in. One moment, please.”

David entered the foyer, which was rather drafty. He stood by the elevator, studying the pattern of the marble flooring, hoping whatever floor he was going up to would be warmer that this. The footfalls of the guard sounded behind him as the man approached, then inserted a key in the control panel for the elevator and pushed the call button.

“It goes straight up to the main entrance, no need to select a floor.”

“Thank you.”

The elevator was relatively quiet; David looked at the posted mechanical specifications without truly seeing them, just something to focus on so when the doors opened he wouldn’t be looking directly at whatever lay behind. He wanted to convey a sort of distracted air at first. Then he stepped into a similar foyer, running his fingers along a rosewood table in the center of the space. The door opposite was closed, silence thick like dust save the ticking of a grandfather clock. Roger opened the door seconds later, just the slightest of smiles for his _bête noir_.

“Dave, this is –“

“Yes I know. I shan’t be long, I brought you something to read.”

Roger motioned him into an ornate sitting room, and David tried not to chuckle at Laurie’s taste in furniture. It was all rather _Town & Country_, wasn’t it? They sat down in matching wing chairs as David pulled the envelope out of the bag.

“What is this about?”

“Just read it, the page I’ve put on top. You can go back and read it all in order later.”

David glanced at the hunter green carpet beneath his feet, the carved tables and porcelain painted plates on little stands, the silk plants and embroidered cushions and the atmosphere was getting to him, he felt smothered. He heard the low murmur of a television from the other end of the floor, all interconnected rooms with windows which looked out on the spectacle of this city, a city anyone could hide in if they so chose. He suddenly felt an ache for the farm and his family – noisy and fighting and impatient – that was life. This…was a sort of preserved display. Roger’s emotional attachments were, as always, a proposition of distance. And David pitied him.

“What is this?” the other finally said, his gravely voice shaking.

“Can’t tell who wrote it, then? And when?”

“Well one would assume it’s Rick, but –“

“Yes. And there’s only one time he could have – unless there are other things I don’t know.” David sighed. “Wouldn’t be surprised at all, now, if there were.”

“Where –“

“He left it to me, in a manner of speaking. Well, one might say he left it to _you_ , but he wanted me to be the one to give it to you.”

“You realize he was terribly –“

“We were _all_ mad, Roger, don’t pin it on him. Not now. He’s gone, and he deserves to be remembered with fondness, with love. If you can’t bring yourself to do _that_ , then the least you could do is shut it. You’ve already said enough, over the years.”

“You’re not entirely blameless, y’know.”

“Not saying I am. A fact for which I will remain forever regretful. I have a lot of regrets, actually. I would hope you do as well.”

“Haven’t I said as much?”

“To _them_ ,” David proclaimed, his hand gesturing towards the window in acknowledgement of public expectation. “But not to _us_ , which would lead one to assume it’s merely for show. Georgie and his grand pronouncements, but never a kind word for those who’d always been there, who believed in you and let you have your way, even at the expense of our own sanity and pride.”

“I’ve let it go, why can’t you?”

“Why? _Because you never apologized for the terrible things you did!_ And you’re going to relive them, all in this.” David took out the diary and handed it to Roger. “But if you’re thinking of destroying it, know that I’ve got a complete copy.”

Roger opened the book and blanched as he flipped through the pages.

“What are you thinking of doing?”

“Nothing. I did what Rick asked me to do. I retrieved it from Le Rouret –“

“You went there?!”

“Yes. Rick wanted me to find the diary before Jamie and Gala did whatever they were planning to do with the villa.”

Roger didn’t respond, he was reading another page. Finally he looked up, a hint of the old sharp scrutiny in his gaze.

“Terrible things, hmm? You did some rather _terrible_ things yourself, Dave.”

David met his gaze with steadfast calm. “Whatever I’ve done, I’ve made my peace with it now. Even with you. I loved you, and I suppose I never got over loving you, but it’s behind me now. You will always be someone in my life, whether I like it or not. And I accept that.”

“Are you sorry you betrayed my trust, my faith?”

“You never gave me either, not really. You deserted me, right in front of my eyes.”

“I never gave - _you_ -“ Then Roger paused, sighing. “Said I would never do this again.”

“And neither will I. I’m letting it go, walking away. Whatever you choose to do with the diary, it’s your own lookout. But I hope you’ll read it first.”

“Has anyone else seen this?”

“Only James.”

Roger chortled, like the cracking of ice. “Of course. Loyal to the last.”

“Oh stop it. He’s as loyal to you as to me, so you shouldn’t be such a cunt.”

“I try to leave him out of things, and then of course he’s right back in it again.”

“We’re _both_ to blame for that.”

Roger smirked. “The curse of being eminently useful.”

David chuckled, not meaning to, but it was true. As always, Roger was capable of pithy wisdom. But his mission was more important than any considerations of what he might still consider attractive about the other.

“Roger, I’ve done what Rick asked me…save one thing.”

He reached into his bag and pulled out another scanned and printed page.

“I’ll read this in my own good time!”

“Look at the top of the page.”

_I HOPE YOU CAN LIVE WITH YOURSELF._

Roger grimaced. “More pouting, he was always so –“ But then he frowned as he read and within that frown there appeared anger and pain. His lips were tight and pale as he tossed the page onto the floor. David picked it up, unfazed.

“He was mad. Completely unhinged.”

“You say that as if you were the only one who knew him. I was there too, I ignored what I did see –“

“Because you were too busy –“

“ _Do not put this back on me!_ This is about **you**.”

“You can’t possibly believe this! It is beyond all reasonable considerations!”

“I’ve been thinking about madness of late. That was a spring and summer of madness, I can admit it to myself now, for _all_ of us.”

“I don’t know what you expect me to say. If you’re waiting for some grand confession -”

“Was it you who appeared to Millie when she had her breakdown?”

“ **What?!** ” Roger rose to his feet, his eyes dark with rage. “Get out.”

It was a thin ice…that which caused his brittle tone to crack, striding to the door, throwing it open then summoning the elevator. David calmly gathered his belongings and walked out, wondering…if it _were_ true, would Roger ever show his hand, just because he could? He had done a great many things for the sake of his own imperative and no other. But even Roger might realize how closely he was skirting a tyrannical vacuum.

David had not asked the other witness what he believed or did not believe. He supposed nothing truly mattered save their own consciences, which were surely wanting in some way in regards to the one who very rarely defended himself against anyone, offering only silence to any and all accusations.

Descending in the elevator from a height of surreal disclosure back to the concrete of ordinary existence, he thought of that last page, not knowing when it had been written, but the text was imbued with the characteristics of what had defined the summer of 1979.

Fear. Desire. Regret.

_I cannot say which of us suffered more as a result of what happened that night. I cannot even say which of us succumbed completely to that affliction. She said it was a dark gift of liberation, of knowledge. But it was born out of the deepest loathing, and the failure to communicate. We never succeeded half as well as we failed._

_But I saw him. I saw him transform and corner me and snarl with bloodlust at my terror. For all my days I would suffer nightmares of the moment in which I knew there was nothing between myself and oblivion save his horrific anger. He spared me, to show me he could do either…he could kill me, or he could do worse and leave me to suffer._

_And I’ve wondered, all these years, wondered how he could suppress the urge to rip anyone’s throat out, the way he had done to her and then spared me to live in haunted agony._

David stood on the sidewalk for a moment, taking a grateful breath of the night air after the stifling atmosphere of the residence, looking out at the city which offered no apology for itself, a reflection of its’ inhabitants. As for the man who was left to his gilded tower, David hoped Roger might at least murmur his grief to the aethyrs. He sighed, breath clouding the cold, and sought the warm mundane sanity of the car and the world beyond.


End file.
